Pakistan to Seek Bin Laden's Surrender
Delegation Going to Afghanistan Today to Demand Taliban Hand Over Fugitive

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 17, 2001; Page A08

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 16 -- The Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, announced here today that a delegation of Pakistani officials would fly to the Taliban's headquarters in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar Monday to renew demands that the militia surrender Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden.

U.S. officials have named bin Laden, who has been given shelter by the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan, as the prime suspect in Tuesday's terrorist attacks in Washington and New York.

"We are aware of the gravity of the situation and know that in the lives of nations, such situations do arise that require making important decisions," Musharraf said at a meeting with Pakistani newspaper editors.

The Taliban's leader, Mohammad Omar, has refused to give up bin Laden, claiming he is not responsible for the U.S. attacks.

"The Pakistan government is leaning on the Taliban government to hand over Osama to save this entire region from catastrophe," said Najam Sethi, editor of the weekly newspaper Friday Times, who participated in the meeting with Musharraf. "I am not sure whether there is much chance of that happening, but the pressure is on from the Pakistan government."

Pakistan has been a key supporter of the Taliban, which controls more than 90 percent of Afghanistan and has enforced a strict interpretation of Islamic law in the country.

Musharraf, in an effort to win regional support for his decision to offer airspace and intelligence in preparation for a possible U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan, will fly to Beijing Monday for discussions with Pakistan's Chinese allies, officials said today. The support of China, which has supplied Pakistan with military hardware and other support in recent years, is a critical component of Musharraf's decision to assist the United States, officials said.

Shamshad Ahmad, Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations, told the Reuters news agency that Pakistan obtained permission from Alfonso Valdivieso of Colombia, chairman of the U.N. Security Council's sanctions committee, to go to Kandahar on Monday and urge the Taliban to turn over bin Laden.

The Security Council, at the urging of the United States and Russia, imposed sanctions in 1999 and again last December on the Taliban, including a flight ban, diplomatic isolation and an arms embargo.

Omar, the Taliban leader, today convened an emergency meeting of clerics in the Afghan capital, Kabul. "As regards the possible attack by America on the sacred soil of Afghanistan, veteran honorable [clerics] should come to Kabul for a sharia decision," Omar said in a statement broadcast on the Taliban's Radio Shariat today. Sharia is Islamic law.

Omar, who reportedly left his Kandahar headquarters several days ago in anticipation of a U.S. attack, asked Afghans to pray and read the Koran to meet what he called a "test," according to the statement. He indicated he would not attend the meeting of clerics, though he reportedly met with a small group of senior clerics today.

The Taliban today asked the Organization for Islamic Conference and other Muslim nations for assistance in the event of an attack. "We should unite against our enemies who want to crush us because we are Muslim," one Taliban official quoted Omar as saying, according to Reuters.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported today it had received a statement from bin Laden, dispatched by an aide from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan, in which he denied involvement in last week's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"I am residing in Afghanistan," the statement said. "I have taken an oath of allegiance to [Omar] which does not allow me to do such things from Afghanistan. We have been blamed in the past, but we were not involved."

Signs of growing panic were reported across Afghanistan. The last of the country's foreign aid workers left Kabul after the Taliban ordered all foreigners out of the country.

"It is a very fearful situation, and I have to admit it is something I have never felt before," said Robert Monin, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation to Afghanistan.

Kabul residents and other Afghans jammed buses and filled roads in a continuing mass exodus from the capital toward the Pakistani border, where Pakistan officials said they will not be allowed to cross.

"We don't know whether we should run or hide," Morad Ali, a Kabul civil servant, told the Associated Press.

"We have fortified our bunkers and our important installations, including military bases and airfields," Taliban Information Minister Qadratullah Jamal said in Kabul.

Meanwhile, thousands of people gathered today in a small village in Afghanistan's mighty Hindu Kush mountain range to bury opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, who died from wounds in a suicide attack against him, AP reported. Supporters of Massoud shouted slogans against the Taliban and condemned the attacks in New York and Washington. Massoud was buried in his home village of Basarak in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul.