Afghan spy agency says will militarily target anyone mourning Mullah Omar

Afghanistan's spy agency has said that it will militarily target anyone mourning former Taliban chief Mullah Omar.

Announcing a ban of all mourning ceremonies for deceased Omar, Haseeb Siddiqui, spokesman for the National Directorate of Security (NDS), was quoted, as saying in Kabul that Omar was "the biggest cause of war and backwardness in the modern history of Afghanistan."

He further stated that holding funeral ceremonies in his honour would be seen as 'an insult to the thousands of martyrs of this nation'.

According to the Dawn, the announcement came hours after Afghan forces targeted and killed a few insurgents present during a commemoration ceremony that was organised in the memory of Omar in the eastern province of Ghazni.

Many ceremonies commemorating the Taliban chief have been reported to have taken place in Pakistan.

Hafiz Saeed, the head of Jamaatud Dawa (JuD), which has been allegedly behind the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks, has also held vicarious funerals for Mullah Omar at mosques in Islamabad and Karachi.

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, a pro-Taliban political party active in Balochistan, had on Friday held a condolence reference and a public meeting in Quetta to mourn the demise of Mullah Omar.

Earlier last week, the Taliban had confirmed the death of their supremo, who led the movement for some 20 years, prompting an outpouring of grief from his legions of loyalists.