Taliban: We hold bin Laden

The New York Times and The Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Osama bin Laden is still in Afghanistan "under the control" of the Taliban government at a hideout known only to "the people responsible for his safety," the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan said Sunday.

The envoy, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, also said that bin Laden "will not be handed over to anyone" for his alleged role in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

The remarks added a new twist to weeks of convolutions surrounding bin Laden’s whereabouts. This time, the Taliban appeared either to be telling the United States that it would have to come after bin Laden with force if it wanted him, or more likely, as Western diplomats here saw it, to be buying time.

In a seeming contradiction, Zaeef said the United States should produce "evidence" of bin Laden’s guilt if it wanted any cooperation from the Taliban.

Zaeef said the Taliban, who have rejected a series of appeals to hand over bin Laden and avert a military confrontation, were willing to talk. "We are thinking of negotiation," he said, adding that if direct evidence against bin Laden were produced, "it might change things."

That met with a crisp rebuff from Washington. "The president has said we’re not negotiating," White House chief of staff Andrew Card said. Card said the Taliban had worked closely with bin Laden and "clearly it is not right."

Previously, the ambassador has given a kaleidoscope of replies about the Saudi exile’s whereabouts, saying, at various times, that the Taliban did not know where bin Laden was and could not find him, then implying that he might have fled Afghanistan, then reversing again and saying that the Taliban could reach him by messenger but did not know exactly where he was.

Sunday, the ambassador, speaking to reporters through an interpreter, gave still another version.

"Wherever he is, he’s under control of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and because of his safety you know it’s only the security people who are responsible for his safety who know his whereabouts, and no one else," he said. "But he is wherever he is under control of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan."

He added, "He’s in a place which cannot be located by anyone."

"It was just a few days ago that they said they didn’t know where he was, so I have no reason to believe anything a Taliban representative would say," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in an appearance on the NBC program "Meet the Press."

As for the prospects of the Taliban ever agreeing to bin Laden’s handover, Rumsfeld said the Taliban had been "rather adamant" in their refusals. Now, he said, "I doubt that they’ll do anything about it."

One measure of the diminishing patience among America’s allies came Sunday from the British prime minister, Tony Blair, who has committed British forces to joining in any American-led military operation. In London, Blair left little doubt about one of the aspects of the Bush administration’s declared war on terrorism that has caused most unease in Muslim countries — the possibility of removing the Taliban from government.

"If they are not prepared to give up bin Laden, which they could do if they wanted to, then they become an obstacle that we have to disable or remove to get to bin Laden," Blair said.

"So that’s their choice. So it’s not as if we set out with the aim of changing the Taliban regime, but if they remain in the way of achieving our objectives, namely that bin Laden and his associates are yielded up and the terror camps are closed, then the Taliban themselves become our enemy," Blair said.