Mohammed Omar

Born into a religious family in Kandahar, Muhammad Umar Mujahid joined the mujahideen after the Soviet invasion in 1979, losing his right eye in combat during the war. After the Soviets withdrew and Afghanistan collapsed into civil war in 1992, he grew disgusted with what he saw as moral decay and formed the Taliban with religious students in 1994. By 1996 his forces had seized most of the country and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, a Sunni theocracy that massacred civilians, banned women from school and work, and demolished the Buddhas of Bamiyan on his personal decree. When al-Qaeda - whom he had sheltered - carried out the September 11 attacks, he refused American demands to extradite bin Laden without evidence, prompting the U.S.-led invasion in October 2001. He fled Kandahar that December, delegated control to deputies, and commanded an insurgency from Zabul Province for over a decade while evading an international manhunt, dying of tuberculosis in 2013 - two years before his death was made public and eight years before the Taliban retook Kabul.

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