- The car that Mullah Omar, the founder of the Taliban, drove to get away from US soldiers after 9/11 has been found.
- It had been buried for more than 20 years in a garden in Afghanistan’s eastern Zabul province.
- Official Taliban media showed pictures of men digging it out with hand shovels.
KANDAHAR: The car that Mullah Omar, the founder of the Taliban, drove to get away from US soldiers after the 9/11 attacks has been found in eastern Afghanistan. It had been buried for more than 20 years.
Abdul Jabbar Omari, who used to work for the Taliban, buried the white Toyota Corolla in a small garden in the province of Zabul and told people this week to dig it up.
“It is still in good condition, only its front is a bit damaged,” said Rahmatullah Hammad, the provincial head of information and culture, to AFP.
“This vehicle was buried by the mujahideen as a memorial to Omar in 2001 to avoid it being lost,” he claimed.
Official Taliban media showed pictures of men digging a car out of the ground with hand shovels.
Hammad stated that the Taliban want the vehicle placed in the national museum in the capital as a “great historical artefact.”
Mullah Omar, who led the extreme Islamist movement to power in 1996 following a deadly civil war and imposed a rigid interpretation of Islamic law on the country, founded the Taliban in Kandahar.
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Afghanistan thereafter provided a haven for jihadist organisations, including Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks.
When the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden, the US and its allies invaded, ousted the Taliban, and installed a new government.
Taliban officials alleged that Mullah Omar escaped Kandahar in a Toyota Corolla.
Officials kept his 2013 death secret for years.
Last year, Washington took its last soldiers out of Afghanistan as the Taliban took over the country, took over Kabul, and took back power.
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