Taliban again refuse to hand over bin Laden without proof

By Mort Rosenblum

Associated Press

QUETTA, Pakistan – Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban refused again Tuesday to surrender Osama bin Laden without proof he was involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Speaking at a news conference in Pakistan, the ambassador for the ruling Islamic militia said the Taliban are ready for negotiations with Washington on the issue, an offer the United States has repeatedly rejected.

Abdul Salam Zaeef also dismissed Western threats that the Taliban could be toppled from power in Afghanistan if they did not meet demands to hand over bin Laden and his lieutenants in the al-Qaida network.

“Only Allah changes the regime and only Allah brings the others instead of us,” he said, speaking in English.

Both President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued tough warnings to the Taliban on Tuesday, with the British leader telling Afghanistan’s leaders in a speech to “surrender terrorists or surrender power.”

It came as NATO’s secretary general said Washington had presented its allies with “compelling” proof that bin Laden and his al-Qaida organization were behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In response to Blair’s comments, Zaeef replied: “We don’t want to surrender (him) without any proof, any evidence.” And he dismissed NATO’s claims that Washington had presented the alliance with conclusive evidence.

“If they are giving it (evidence) to the other countries, it belongs to them, not to us,” he replied. “They haven’t given it to us.”

“We are ready for negotiations,” Zaeef said. “It is up to the other side to agree or not. Only the way of negotiation will solve our problems. We should discuss this issue and decide.”

The United States has turned down Taliban offers to negotiate. Bush repeated that stance Tuesday. “I have said that the Taliban must turn over the al-Qaida organization living in Afghanistan and must destroy the terrorist camps. They must do so, otherwise there will be a consequence,” he said. “There are no negotiations. There is no calendar.”

Taliban officials have repeatedly said they are not afraid of American military action, and a rally in Kandahar, the southern city where the Taliban was formed, appeared meant to underscore that defiant message.

The Afghan Islamic Press, an Islamabad-based private news agency close to the Taliban, said 10,000 marchers burned American flags and effigies of President Bush, shouting that Afghanistan would not give up bin Laden. Later, Taliban officials in Kabul put the number of protesters at 50,000. No independent confirmation could be obtained.

Abdul Hanan Himat, the Taliban information minister, said marchers also denounced Afghanistan’s deposed king, who has indicated he might ally himself with groups seeking to topple the Taliban.

The Taliban also appeared anxious to dispel any rumors of an internal split. The Taliban’s No. 2 man – Mullah Mohammed Hassan, who is thought to be more flexible in his thinking than Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar – took part in a pro-government rally in the southern Afghanistan city of Gardez, Taliban officials said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who has pledged to back the United States against bin Laden and the Taliban, was briefed Tuesday by the U.S. ambassador on the status of the American investigation into bin Laden.

A Pakistani official said afterward that Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin provided no conclusive proof that bin Laden was involved in the terror attacks.

“We have yet to receive any detailed evidence about the persons responsible for the horrendous act of terrorism, or other links with bin Laden or al-Qaida,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammed Khan said.

Embassy spokesman Mark Wentworth said the 90-minute meeting included several issues, among them “the status of the investigation to date.” U.S. officials could not be reached to comment on the Pakistani foreign ministry statement.

On Monday, Musharraf told the British Broadcasting Corp. that U.S. strikes against Afghanistan appear certain. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry underscored that Tuesday, saying: “We have told them (the Taliban) that they don’t have much time.”