Afghanistan's Taliban movement said Wednesday that hackers gained access to its website and its spokesmen's mobile phones and spread false rumours that its spiritual leader had died, DPA reported.
A Taliban statement called the hacking concerning Mullah Omar "technical larceny" and a crime by the "enemy."
"These are all efforts by enemies and their intelligence services to create worries among the mujahedin," said Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman. "He is alive, and he is commanding the jihad."
The claim was the second in two months that Omar had been killed. In May, local media reported shortly after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan that Omar had also been shot dead in Pakistan, an allegation denied by the Taliban.
Omar has been in hiding since the ouster of his regime by US-led forces in late 2001 for harbouring bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network, blamed for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.
Afghan and US officials have repeatedly said the one-eyed leader was hiding in Quetta, Pakistan, under the protection of its spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.
Pakistani officials have steadfastly denied such allegations.
The Taliban statement Wednesday condemned the hacking and urged the "mujahed nation not to lend an ear to the designs of the enemy or believe in their propaganda."
"The technical workers of the Islamic Emirate's Information and Cultural Commission have opened an investigation into the enemy's technical larceny and its dirty utilization," it said.