Taliban calls for U.S. patience, bin Laden proof
By Peter Millership and Jack Redden, Reuters, 09/19/01
WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD -- The leader of Afghanistan's Islamic Taliban movement appealed to the United States Wednesday for patience in its call for Osama bin Laden to be handed over as a prime suspect in nightmare attacks on New York and Washington and asked to see proof in the case.
The United States has warned Afghanistan to surrender the militant Saudi exile, whom Washington believes is behind the attacks that left nearly 6,000 people dead and missing, or face the consequences. The Taliban say bin Laden is their "guest."
"We appeal to the U.S. government to exercise complete patience," the Pakistan-based AIP news agency quoted Mullah Mohammad Omar, spiritual leader of the purist Taliban, as saying in a speech read out to a meeting of hundreds of clerics gathered in the presidential palace in the capital, Kabul.
Appearing to rule out any swift handover of the 44-year-old multimillionaire who has become the world's most wanted man, Omar said: "We want America to gather complete information and find the culprits." Evidence could be submitted to the Afghan Supreme Court or to clerics of three Islamic nations, he said.
"We assure the whole world that neither Osama nor anyone else can use Afghan territory against anyone," said the reclusive, one-eyed leader who is considered a chief protector of bin Laden. Bin Laden has denied masterminding the attacks.
The grand council of clerics, or shura, could decide on what to do about bin Laden and whether to back the call of the Taliban leader for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States if the country is attacked.
A bellicose President Bush has vowed justice for America's dead with a war on "terrorism," which is being worked out in secret and will use economic and diplomatic strategies as well as military options that could range from covert operations to ground war.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans are on the move, fearing a massive U.S. punishment strike. Those left in Kabul were stockpiling food.
Assembling a broad coalition for his campaign that targets bin Laden as a prime suspect in the devastating attacks by airliners on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush will use his persuasive powers Wednesday at the White House when a parade of dignitaries visits from Asia, Europe and Russia.
Omar said that international pressure over bin Laden had another goal, destruction of the Islamic state. "The enemies of this country look on the Islamic system as a thorn in their eye and they seek different excuses to finish it off," he said. "Osama bin Laden is one of these," Omar told the clerics.
AFGHAN CLERICS TAKE CENTER STAGE
Pakistani officials left Afghanistan Tuesday after trying to convince the Taliban that if they do not hand over the Saudi-born militant their turbaned fighters will face the full wrath of the world's most powerful military force.
Giving shelter to one who asks is a centuries-old tradition, part of an unwritten code called Pashtunwali -- the way of the Pashtuns -- that Afghanistan's mainly ethnic Pashtun people are required to uphold even at the cost of their lives.
The Taliban, however, appeared Tuesday to shift their opposition to extraditing bin Laden, who was reported to have left Kabul and traveled on horseback with his bodyguards to a rugged mountain retreat.
"Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him," said Afghanistan's interior minister. But in talks with the delegation from Pakistan, the Taliban said they needed "proof" before they would consider turning the millionaire exile over to an Islamic country for trial.
Newspapers in neighboring Pakistan said that Afghanistan, which has harbored bin Laden for years, could be ready to turn him over under certain conditions, one of which was that he must be tried in a neutral Islamic nation.
The reports could not be independently confirmed, but Afghan Information Minister Qudrutullah Jamal, in a telephone interview from Kabul with Reuters in Islamabad, gave his country's first acknowledgment that bin Laden could have been involved in the attacks. But he said bin Laden's involvement must be proven before he could be handed over.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington that providing proof could be a problem because of the need to protect intelligence sources.
A U.S. team of intelligence and military officials, is expected this week to visit Pakistan, one of just three nations to recognize the Taliban government, to discuss what Bush has described as the first war of the 21st century.
As tensions mounted in the region, the Taliban asked U.S. news channel CNN to withdraw its correspondent from Afghanistan. The British High Commission in Islamabad told diplomatic dependents and nonessential staff to leave Pakistan.
GLOBAL RECESSION, "GLIMMER OF HOPE"
The attacks raised the specter of global recession, opened a new page in the history of warfare and caused governments around the world to tighten security and overhaul their now-outdated 20th century view of international stability.
The far-reaching economic consequences of the attacks were illustrated late Tuesday when No. 1 aircraft manufacturer Boeing announced plans to lay off up to 30,000 workers by the end of 2002. U.S. stocks dropped for a second successive day Tuesday amid fears of war and recession.
Investors waited for Wall Street Wednesday after the Dow Jones industrial average Tuesday closed down 17.30 points, or 0.19 percent, at 8,903.40, its lowest close since December 1998. Tokyo stocks ended up again for a second day but in early London trading shares weakened.
Bush, who signed a congressional resolution Tuesday authorizing military action, also put his name to a $40 billion aid package to pump into recovering from the attacks.
A week after the fiery destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center -- a symbol of U.S. economic prosperity -- New York faced the wrenching question of when to end a search for survivors and focus instead on recovering the dead.
In the Middle East, there was what Bush called a "glimmer of hope" when the Palestinians announced a cease-fire and Israel said it would withdraw troops from areas previously ceded to Palestinian control.
The orders by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat came amid pressure to end a year of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed widely seen as an obstacle to U.S. efforts to forge an alliance against terror.
Bush, who has seen pledges of support tempered by appeals to keep a cool head, was further encouraged by a show of unity from French President Jacques Chirac who pledged "complete solidarity" at a meeting in Washington.
So far Bush has spoken to 20 leaders by telephone. President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, meets Bush Wednesday.
TOP SECRET PLANS, TERROR FUNDING TARGETED
Rumsfeld gave some insights into Washington's top secret military planning, which officials say will also target the funding that is the lifeblood of terror networks.
"We are preparing appropriate courses of action ... they run across the political and economic and financial, military, intelligence spectrum," he said in Washington.
On the question of striking Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest and harshest countries geographically, he said it would be a difficult military target for any nation. "Several countries have exhausted themselves pounding that country..."
The U.N. Security Council added to growing international pressure when it called for Afghanistan to surrender bin Laden "immediately and unconditionally." The United Nations had previously demanded that he be handed over to face charges of blowing up U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.
In New York, rescue workers in the twisted rubble of the World Trade Center found nothing but bodies and body parts. The list of the missing stood at 5,422 people, he said. Only 218 were confirmed dead, 66 of them unidentified.
The hijackers, in a coordinated attack, crashed airliners into the two 110-story skyscrapers of the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon near Washington. A fourth jet crashed into a field in western Pennsylvania.
Officials said 189 were dead or missing at the Pentagon, including 64 passengers on the American Airlines jet that struck the military headquarters. The Defense Department said Tuesday it would cost at least $520 million to repair the structure. Forty-five people died in the Pennsylvania crash.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the FBI was investigating whether other aircraft may have been targeted for hijacking in the elaborate plot the government pins on bin Laden and his Muslim followers.
He said 75 people who may have information on the attacks were now in custody for immigration violations and 190 more were wanted for questioning. U.S. officials have named 19 men they say used knives and box cutters in the hijacks.
