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Taliban Leader to Let Islamic Council Decide Whether to Hand over Bin Laden
A grand Islamic council in Afghanistan should decide the fate of Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in last week's terror attacks in the United States, the Taliban's supreme leader said Monday. Hours later, the Taliban urged Afghans to prepare for war.
The announcement by Mullah Mohammed Omar came after a Pakistani delegation met with him and delivered a blunt message to Afghanistan's radical Taliban rulers: Hand over bin Laden or be hit by a punishing retaliatory strike from a U.S.-led international coalition.
The Islamic council Omar spoke about was scheduled to convene in Kabul, the capital, on Tuesday. The Pakistani delegation, which came to Kabul after meeting with Omar in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, stayed Monday night in hopes of influencing its ruling and possibly heading off a U.S. strike.
It wasn't clear if even a positive response from the Taliban could avert war, or if the Taliban could be persuaded to dismantle bin Laden's terror network even if they hand him over to the United States. Bin Laden's al-Qaida group is said to operate training camps in several Afghan provinces including eastern Nangarhar, Kunar, Paktia and Kandahar.
On Tuesday, Afghanistan's official news agency warned of a possible U.S. invasion and urged Afghans to prepare for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States.
Throughout Afghanistan, Taliban leaders are sending a message to their people: "Stay united and prepare for jihad against U.S. invaders," the Taliban's Bakhtar News Agency reported.
The meeting in Kandahar took place amid growing tensions Monday along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, which Pakistan virtually closed by halting the movement of all goods except for food and by keeping throngs of frightened Afghan refugees from entering Pakistan.
The neighboring nations each beefed up its military presence along the 1,500-mile border. And the Taliban closed their airspace to all international flights, forcing the 110 flights a day that normally fly over Afghanistan to take alternative paths.
The likelihood of a U.S. strike is transforming the alliances that have held sway in this region since the mid-1990s, driving a wedge between Pakistan and its Taliban allies and cementing ties between Pakistan and its erstwhile Cold War partner, America.
Pakistan has promised "full cooperation" with Washington in the event of a U.S. assault on Afghanistan an event considered likely because of the safe haven the Taliban have given bin Laden since 1996.
There was hope Pakistan could use its clout with the Taliban forged over eight years of close military, economic and diplomatic ties to persuade them to reverse their decision, stated repeatedly in the days since the terror attacks, never to hand over bin Laden.
That hope received a tenuous boost by Omar's announcement, read Monday night over the Taliban-run Radio Shariat, that the Islamic council, or ulema, would decide the issue.
Omar's statement said that the Pakistani delegation insisted "we should try to prevent a U.S. attack." However, it gave no indication whether Omar will be making any recommendation to the ulema.
According to the Radio Shariat broadcast, the gathering of the Islamic council will involve 20 of the country's pre-eminent clerics.
The Pakistani delegation was led by Lt.-Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, chief of the Interservices Intelligence, the Pakistani agency believed to have played a part in the creation in the mid-1990s of the Taliban, a devoutly Muslim religious militia that now rules about 95 percent of Afghanistan.
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