Taliban Refuses to Surrender Bin Laden
Afghan People Are Urged to Prepare For a Holy War

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 19, 2001; Page A01

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 18 -- The leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia rebuffed a demand by Pakistani officials to surrender alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden to avert a U.S. military attack, government sources here said today.

The Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar, has formally shifted responsibility for deciding bin Laden's fate to a council of senior Islamic clerics. But a source familiar with the talks in Afghanistan between a Pakistani delegation and the Taliban leadership said Omar told Pakistan's intelligence chief, Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, "Osama will be the last person to leave Afghanistan." The Pakistani delegation left this evening.

The clerical council was supposed to convene today, but reports from the Afghan capital, Kabul, said the meeting was delayed because of challenges in assembling the several hundred men who will decide the fate of bin Laden, identified as the prime suspect behind last week's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Taliban officials said the meeting could be held Wednesday or Thursday.

As the clerics converged on Kabul, the Taliban urged Afghans to prepare for a holy war, and residents fearing U.S. military strikes fled the capital for the Pakistani border and mountainous rural areas. U.N. refugee officials estimated that tens of thousands of people have left Afghan cities in recent days. Reports of disturbances along the 1,500-mile frontier prompted Pakistan to attempt to close all border crossings today.

Though the council still has formal responsibility for deciding bin Laden's fate, Omar has been the Taliban's undisputed leader since its formation seven years ago. Bin Laden, who has been living in Afghanistan since 1996, has provided money and troops to help the Taliban, earning him substantial support within the radical Islamic militia. Analysts suggested it was unlikely that Omar would surrender him voluntarily.

The Taliban has called bin Laden a "guest" and said that handing him over to the United States would betray a tenet of Islam. And even if a narrow majority of clerics decided to surrender bin Laden, officials and analysts said, he is believed to have as many as 3,000 well-armed fighters under his command inside Afghanistan, as well as the support of many of the Taliban's soldiers.

"It would not occur without a fight," said Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and analyst. "If the moderates were to try to get him handed over, it would lead to a civil war."

Some Taliban officials repeated suggestions today that bin Laden could be transferred to another Islamic nation to face trial in exchange for international recognition of the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government and a lifting of U.N. sanctions, Pakistani officials said. U.S. officials, who have demanded bin Laden's unconditional surrender, have said such an offer would be unacceptable.

Pakistani officials said their delegation bluntly told the Taliban that if it did not turn over bin Laden, it would face certain attack by a multinational force led by the United States. "Our delegation conveyed in stark terms the gravity of the situation and what the international community expects from the Afghan leadership," said Riaz Mohammad Khan, a spokesman for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry.

Before leaving Kabul, the Pakistani delegation met with eight foreign aid workers being tried on charges of illegally preaching Christianity, a Pakistani official told the Associated Press. Pakistan asked Taliban authorities to release the aid workers -- two Americans, four Germans and two Australians -- and the authorities promised to consider the request, he said.

With a U.S.-led attack appearing increasingly likely, Taliban leaders called on Afghans to prepare for a holy war against the United States, the official Bakhtar News Agency reported today.

"If America attacks our homes, it is necessary for all Muslims, especially for Afghans, to wage a holy war," state-run Voice of Shariat radio reported Mohammed Hasan Akhund, the deputy Taliban leader, as saying. "God is on our side, and if the world's people try to set fire to Afghanistan, God will protect us and help us."

Widespread expectations of a U.S. strike have led to panic buying in Kabul's markets and a steady exodus of residents. Residents reported that shops are running low on supplies, and international aid workers, who pulled out of the country last week, said donated food supplies, on which thousands of residents rely, will run out in a few weeks.

"People are very nervous here," one resident said, speaking by satellite telephone. "Those who have the resources to leave are on the run. Those who must stay behind are relying on Allah to protect them."

Thousands of people have been heading toward Pakistan, where more than 2 million Afghan refugees already are living in camps near the border. U.N. officials reported that about 5,000 refugees have massed at the Chaman border crossing between Kandahar, the Taliban's headquarters, and the Pakistani provincial capital of Quetta, where police fired warning shots to force back surging crowds. Thousands of others attempting to flee Kabul and other large cities, however, have been prevented from nearing the border by Taliban fighters, the United Nations said.

But Pakistani authorities said they nevertheless feared an onslaught of refugees. "The major worry that we have at the present is that hundreds of thousands of Afghans are leaving cities and heading toward the border," said Khan, the Foreign Ministry spokesman.

In Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, about 5,000 people staged a boisterous demonstration to protest possible U.S. military action against Afghanistan. The rally, the biggest in Pakistan since the terrorist attacks, underscored the deep divisions that exist in this overwhelmingly Muslim country about cooperating with the United States in efforts to target terrorist activities in Afghanistan.

The protesters, chanting "Osama is our brother" and "An attack on Afghanistan is an attack on Pakistan," attempted to march toward the U.S. Consulate but were turned away by police and soldiers. The demonstrators later burned an effigy of President Bush.

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said today that the State Department had authorized nonessential embassy and consulate staff members and their families to evacuate Pakistan because of fears of possible violence and terrorist strikes against Americans. Several other Western embassies and multinational companies have taken similar actions.

Correspondents Pamela Constable and Molly Moore in Islamabad and special correspondent Kamran Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.