ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON, 28 September — US President George W. Bush vowed yesterday that international jitters would not distract the United States from its war on terrorism, as the intelligence net closed on chief suspect Osama Bin Laden, and sources in Islamabad said Pakistan will send a new official delegation to Kabul.
“Others will tire and weary. I understand that, but not our nation. Others will second guess, but not our nation. Others will become impatient, but not this great nation,” Bush told a cheering crowd at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.
Earlier, State Department officials had poured cold water on the idea that US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson could act as a mediator between Washington and the Taleban regime in Kabul, which is sheltering bin Laden.
Washington has rejected the idea of negotiating with the Taleban, demanding simply that it hand over Bin Laden and his lieutenants, who are suspected of planning the Sept. 11 terror blitz on US cities which left over 7,000 dead.
Pakistan will send a new official delegation including religious scholars to Afghanistan today for talks with the Taleban on its standoff with the United States, Pakistani and Taleban sources said. “I have no details but (Taleban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar) has given time to meet the delegation,” the Taliban’s deputy ambassador to Pakistan, Suhail Shaheen told reporters.
Although it will include some Islamic scholars, the main pro-Taleban leaders in Pakistan, including Maulana Samiul Haq, will not take part.
Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, sent a message to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday. The letter was handed to Mubarak by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal in Cairo.
In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency later, Prince Saud said his discussions with Mubarak were useful and both the countries had identical views in confronting terrorism.
“It has been established that the recent terror attacks sought to create a gulf between Muslim and Arab world and the rest of the world and it was against the interests of Muslims and Arabs,” the minister said. He added that terrorism was against the Shariah law and Arab values.
Jackson emerged as a possible mediator yesterday between the United States and Taleban, as US investigators tightened the intelligence noose around Osama Bin Laden. US experts who after three days of talks struck a deal with Pakistan to jointly track down Bin Laden were heading back “with a whole range of information on Bin Laden, his network and his support bases in Pakistan,” an Islamabad intelligence source said.
Pakistani sources said that Islamabad would send an official delegation on a “last-ditch” mission today to try and persuade Omar in Kandahar to back down and avoid conflict.
The United States, and its ally Britain, has massed an impressive strike force around Afghanistan to bring pressure on Kabul, and a worldwide intelligence operation is turning the screws on his Al-Qaeda organization.
In addition to the military and intelligence drives, Bush’s campaign to punish the Sept. 11 massacre has focused on building an international coalition to prosecute a “war against terrorism”.
The coalition has born fruit with commitments from European states, Russia and its central Asian satellites, India, Pakistan and key Islamic states to support US action, and with many countries detaining terror suspects and freezing the funding of groups thought to be linked to Bin Laden.
But Bush signaled that he would pursue tough action even if his allies wavered, and would not bend to accommodate the worries of coalition members.
“We will stand firm and stand strong until we have achieved our mission,” he said. This determination precluded giving Jackson, whose name emerged yesterday as a possible peacemaker, the green light to respond to an invitation from a Taleban spokesman in Pakistan to travel to Kabul.
Jackson, a one-time US presidential candidate and a veteran of several past — and often successful — mediation missions between the United States and its adversaries, said he was “surprised” to hear from the Taleban.
At first Jackson told US television that he might reluctantly take up the offer, but after Washington made it clear the visit would not have official sanction he told journalists: “I do not want to go. I have no plans to go.”
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the United States did not support a peace mission. “We’re not interested in a dialogue,” he said. “We’re interested in action and not negotiation. The demands are not subject to dialogue.” Washington yesterday took its plan to starve terrorists of cash by closing financial loopholes allegedly used to launder money and fund illicit operations to the United Nations, where diplomats said the UN Security Council was likely to approve it “within days.”
Despite progress by investigators and signs that the Taleban grip on power was weakening five years to the day since they marched into Kabul, the government continued to defy calls for cooperation. Mullah Omar made it clear that Afghanistan had no intention of backing down and vowed to defeat any US invasion or bid to install a puppet regime.
“In the event of intervention in Afghanistan there will be no difference between Russia and America,” he said in a statement released through the Pakistan-based AIP news agency. He was referring to the former Soviet Union’s military debacle in Afghanistan, which it occupied between 1979 and 1989.
Meanwhile, a series of linked anti-terrorist operations was in progress worldwide. In Abu Dhabi, the central bank of the United Arab Emirates ordered a freeze on the accounts and investments of 26 individuals and organizations suspected of financing terrorist activities.
In Basel, Switzerland, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said it was helping national central banks track the money trail of suspected terror groups, by creating a central list of named suspects. In Uganda, officials seized the registration documents of a firm thought to have links with Bin Laden.
Acting on information from the CIA or their own surveillance operations, European security agencies have made a string of arrests in a bid to piece together a trans-Atlantic connection to the Sept. 11 attacks. France, Spain, Belgium, Britain and the Netherlands are holding a total of 23 men suspected of links with Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.
