Report about Mullah Omar’s surgery in Pakistan has “no basis whatsoever”: Haqqani

WASHINGTON - The report that Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar had a heart surgery in a Karachi hospital with the assistance of Pakistan’s spy agency has “no basis whatsoever”, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, has said.

“Sometimes intelligence tips received by professionals turn out to be wrong,” the Dawn quoted Haqqani, as saying, while commenting on a report circulated by a private intelligence agency.

“Such reports are fabricated by those who want to give Pakistan a bad name,” he added.

Haqqani recalled that US intelligence sources had reported in 2001 that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was receiving dialysis treatment in Pakistan, but the report turned out to be incorrect.

“Such reports are fabricated by those who want to give Pakistan a bad name,” he stated.

The Washington Post had reported on Wednesday that the intelligence network, operating under the auspices of a private company- “The Eclipse Group”- said its source was a physician in the Karachi hospital, who was not identified in the report.

According to the report, the elusive, one-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban was “rushed” to the hospital on January 7 by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

“The ISI rushed him [Omar] to a hospital in Karachi, where he was given heparin [an anticoagulant] and operated on,” the Washington Post quoted the Eclipse report, as saying.

“After 3-4 days of post-operative care in the hospital, he was released to the ISI and ordered to take absolute bed rest when at home for at least several days,” the report added.

Citing a separate source in the Quetta Shura- the Taliban’s governing council on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan- the Eclipse report said: “Mullah Omar is continuing to improve and his speech is clearing.”

It also said the ISI was keeping the Quetta Shura “informed” about Omar’s recovery at “an ISI ‘guest house’ in Karachi under ISI guard.” (ANI)