Da Joooos?

KABUL, Afghanistan — In this Murdochian age, it somehow seems inevitable: The Taliban movement says it was phone-hacked.

The group said Wednesday that text messages announcing the death of supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar were fake, and asserted that the telephones of its main spokesmen, together with the Taliban website, had been tampered with.

Earlier Wednesday, text and email messages, purportedly from accounts used by Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, had announced the death of the “Amir ul-Momineen,” or commander of the faithful, as Omar is known. Mujahid, reached by phone, denied that he was the sender, and said Omar was alive and directing Taliban operations in Afghanistan.

The reclusive Taliban leader has long been thought by Western officials to be based in or near the Pakistani city of Quetta, though there were reports after the killing of Osama bin Laden that he had been moved to another location.

Soon after the death reports began circulating, Mujahid and another principal spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, sent emails angrily denouncing the actions of a “cunning enemy” who had committed “technical larceny.”

The statements added that the “technical workers of the Islamic Emirate’s Information and Cultural Commission” — effectively, the Taliban’s IT team — had opened an investigation. The Reuters news agency said the group had threatened to take revenge on the phone companies.

The insurgency has long recognized that technology can aid in the dissemination of its message. There is a Taliban website in English and Pashto; the group is also on Twitter and recently began tweeting in English.