Los Angeles Times
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The supreme leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime put the fate of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden, and the country, in the hands of Islamic clerics Monday, creating a chance to avoid war with the United States.
Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s supreme leader, set aside his omnipotent authority after getting a sobering briefing from the spy chief of Afghanistan’s chief ally, neighboring Pakistan.
In Washington, D.C., President Bush declared that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive" for last week’s terror attacks. But U.S. and Pakistani officials said there was no deadline for the Taliban to turn over bin Laden.
The United States still was in the planning stages of diplomatic and military action, the officials said, despite comments from a Pakistani official over the weekend that the Taliban faced a 72-hour deadline.
A Pakistani delegation led by Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, chief of the country’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency, met with the Taliban leader in his stronghold, the eastern city of Kandahar. The Pakistanis, on their own initiative, told Omar he faced an urgent choice: surrender bin Laden or suffer massive attacks by U.S. forces, said a senior Pakistani diplomat. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the extreme sensitivity of the talks.
After three years of international pressure on the Taliban to hand over bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind who was indicted in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, it was unclear whether Omar would be ready to back down, or whether the council would be willing to give in to demands for bin Laden’s arrest.
Monday’s events suggested a scenario similar to one in which the Taliban previously has said it could hand over bin Laden. Ever since bin Laden became a suspect in the embassy bombings, Taliban officials have said that the United States should put its evidence before a Islamic court, and if the evidence proved strong enough, he would be handed over. Washington has consistently rejected that option.
The Pakistani pressure, and Omar’s subsequent decision, came a day after he made a rare radio broadcast to his people, saying he was prepared to die and urging them to get ready for war. His decision Monday could be the supreme leader’s way of avoiding sole responsibility for handing over bin Laden, or it could be a way of sharing the blame if the Taliban refuses and finds itself under American attack.
It was unclear how quickly the Islamic council would decide.
U.S. officials said they were not prepared to accept anything less than having bin Laden handed over to the United States, even if the Taliban offered a compromise. And Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the U.S. goal was to completely destroy bin Laden’s organization.
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