KABUL/WASHINGTON/KARACHI, 19 September — Afghanistan’s Taleban rulers did not rule out yesterday the possibility that Osama Bin Laden masterminded the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but said they needed proof before he could be handed over.
“Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him,” Information Minister Qudrutullah Jamal said in Kabul, conceding for the first time that Bin Laden may have been involved in last Tuesday’s devastating attacks that killed about 5,000 people.
Previously the movement has insisted Bin Laden could not possibly have been involved. Bin Laden has been reported as denying any role.
Jamal was speaking just hours after high-ranking Pakistani officials flew home after two days of talks aimed at persuading the Taleban that if they do not hand over Bin Laden they will face the full wrath of the US military. “We told them (the Pakistani delegation) to give us proof that he did it, because without that how can we give him up?” Jamal said.
Asked if the Taleban had any other conditions for handing over Bin Laden, Jamal said they wanted guarantees that, if charged, the multi-millionaire would face trial in a third country. “We want proof first and we have been saying this for two years,” he said, referring to demands for Bin Laden’s handover after the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. “If they had listened to us then, things would not have come to such a pass,” he said.
The Pakistani team met Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taleban’s leader, on Monday in his southern stronghold of Kandahar to convey the gravity of the situation facing the Taleban if they continue to shelter Bin Laden as a “guest”.
They then flew to Kabul and had talks yesterday with Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhond, deputy head of the Taleban Council of Ministers and Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Khan refused to disclose the outcome of the trip. The team, led by intelligence chief Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, returned to Islamabad yesterday and has no plans to go back. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will address the nation yesterday at 8.30 p.m. (1530 GMT).
A decision on Bin Laden will depend partly on results of a meeting of some 1,000 of Afghanistan’s highest-ranking Islamic scholars now converging on Kabul in response to a call from Mullah Omar for a council, or shoura, today. The council would not only discuss what to do with Bin Laden and whether to set conditions for his surrender but would also consider a call by Mullah Omar for a holy war in case of a US attack and his recommendations after meeting the Pakistanis, Taleban officials said.
President George W. Bush said Americans want Bin Laden “dead or alive”, and has said it would retaliate against anyone protecting the perpetrators of last week’s attacks.
Some two dozen warships flying flags of the United States and its European allies have been sighted near the coastal town of Ormara in Balochistan, maritime experts dealing with merchant shipping reported in Karachi yesterday.
The Inter-Services Public Relations ( ISPR), the media wing of the military, said the ships were far away from the Pakistani coast. the Pakistan Navy has already been put on war alert. Ormara is a naval base located on the mouth of the Gulf and can provide easy access to aircraft engaged in military mission to areas inside Afghanistan.
A week after the attacks, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the chances of finding any of the 5,422 people still missing in the rubble of the collapsed World Trade Center were “very, very small.”
While Bush sought to build a strong international coalition for a possible attack on Afghanistan, some world leaders who condemned the attacks sounded alarm bells at the prospect of American military strikes. Washington’s NATO allies have generally voiced full support for the declared war on terrorism, but China said any US military action should avoid harming innocent people and respect international law. Germany, a key US ally, voiced caution. “We need to react with a cool head,” Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said.
With Washington warning the world it was time to pick sides, Britain and Italy said they would contribute militarily if asked. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac, along with a parade of foreign ministers, are due in Washington this week..
Iran said it would support any UN-led international coalition against terrorism, but cautioned against a US military strike on Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi held telephone conversations with his Canadian, French and German counterparts in a diplomatic frenzy to try to avert a war. “The lack of support in the Muslim world for military action in Afghanistan emanates from a deep concern about jeopardizing the lives of thousands of innocent people and displacement of millions of Afghans,” Kharrazi told Canada’s John Manley.
Bangladesh’s caretaker government said the United States could use its airspace and other facilities if Washington decides to launch a military offensive in the region. “Bangladesh has accepted a US request to use its airspace, port and refueling facilities and access to sea,” Shafi Sami, special assistant to the caretaker authority on foreign affairs, told reporters in Dhaka.
Washington yesterday vowed to use the lure of trade relations —- and the threat of sanctions — to compel other nations to join its campaign to root out terrorism. “We trade with countries all around the world,” Commerce Secretary Donald Evans told CNN, describing trade as a powerful tool in recruiting support for what Washington is calling an all-out war on global terrorism.
