Taliban Rebuffs Clerics' Call for Bin Laden

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Kamran Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 29, 2001; Page A22

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 28 -- The leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia today rebuffed a delegation of Pakistani religious leaders seeking the extradition of alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden, sources familiar with the discussions said.

In the strongest rejection yet of any negotiated settlement to the standoff between the United States and Afghanistan over bin Laden, Taliban leader Mohammad Omar told the visiting clerics that the Taliban was willing to fight to the death to protect bin Laden from U.S. military forces. Omar spoke to the delegation at length about the "virtues of going to war with the infidels," said Mufti Mohammed Jamil, the leader of a large seminary in Pakistan and a participant in the talks.

"He said, 'God has told us to avoid war, but if it is imposed upon us, we must be resolute and fight until the end,' " Jamil said.

The nine-member delegation, which included several former religious teachers of Taliban officials, had embarked on a last-ditch mission to persuade Omar to hand over bin Laden to spare Afghanistan from a U.S. military strike. The Taliban has harbored bin Laden in Afghanistan since 1996, and U.S. authorities have identified him as the prime suspect in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But Omar, the participants said, did not want to negotiate. Instead, they said, he launched into a 2 1/2-hour sermon defending his decision to shelter bin Laden.

"It was a monologue," one participant said. "He didn't want to listen."

Pakistani officials said the failure of the clerics' mission suggests there is little chance of a peaceful resolution to the dispute. The officials said the Taliban is instead girding for war.

In Afghanistan today, worshipers at the main mosque in the capital, Kabul, called on God to punish the "arrogance" of the United States, the Associated Press reported. The mullah said in his sermon that Afghans "will never bow" before the United States.

In Pakistan, militant Islamic groups staged demonstrations in several cities to protest President Pervez Musharraf's decision to allow the United States to use Pakistani airspace and territory as staging grounds for strikes against Afghanistan. In Peshawar, near the Afghan border, several thousand protesters engaged in what has become a routine, chanting "Death to America!" and burning effigies of President Bush.

Today's mission to Afghanistan by the Pakistani clerics was widely viewed as the best chance to sway the Taliban leadership, although Omar last week rebuffed a team of Pakistani government officials that urged him to hand over bin Laden. The clerics have known Omar and other Taliban officials for a long time, and many of them share the Taliban's ultraconservative interpretation of Islam.

The discussions also were thought to have promise because the Taliban said on Thursday that it had succeeded in delivering a message to bin Laden urging him to leave Afghanistan. A council of senior Afghan clerics, which was convened by Omar after the first Pakistani team left, had called on the Taliban last week to ask bin Laden to leave the country.

But Omar's recalcitrance today indicated to Pakistani officials that the Taliban has no interest in surrendering bin Laden unconditionally -- a demand of the Bush administration. The participants said Omar insisted, as he has in the past, that bin Laden be sent to a Muslim country that would try him in an Islamic court.

One participant said Omar and other Afghan leaders spoke about the afterlife Taliban members will enjoy if they die fighting for bin Laden. "They talked about how glorious this duty is in Islam," the participant said.

Jamil said Omar told the participants that "we have been making offers and America has been declining them like an arrogant superpower."

U.S. officials have said that even the surrender of bin Laden would not turn their anti-terrorist gaze from Afghanistan. They have insisted that the Taliban surrender all of bin Laden's associates and shut down the training camps of his al Qaeda terrorist organization.

"It's not just Mr. bin Laden we expect to see brought to justice," Bush said at the White House today. "It's everyone associated with his organization that's in Afghanistan. And not only those directly associated with Mr. bin Laden, any terrorist that is housed and fed in Afghanistan needs to be handed over."

Pakistan's government, which has promised to support U.S. efforts to crack down on terrorists, is pushing for a solution that does not involve military action, which it fears will provoke an angry backlash from its own radical Muslims.

"In view of the gravity of the situation, the Afghan leadership should be responsive to what the world is expecting of them," said Riaz Mohammed Khan, a spokesman for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry.

The Taliban's representative in Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, described the talks as "fruitful," according to the Associated Press. But Zaeef told the news agency that bin Laden was not discussed.

The two sides, he said, "talked about the stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan."

All nine members of the delegation command the respect of Taliban leaders, who attended seminaries in Pakistan before launching their movement in 1994. One of the participants, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, is said to be so revered by Omar that the Taliban leader never meets him with his shoes on.

Shamzai is highly sympathetic to the Taliban. He has issued religious edicts calling for a holy war against the United States if it strikes Afghanistan, and he pledged to take over the airport in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, in the event of an attack.

But Shamzai has bristled at some of bin Laden's recent pronouncements, particularly a statement he purportedly released saying he admired the people who carried out the attacks in New York and Washington. "It's wrong to kill innocent people," Shamzai said.

Khan reported from Karachi.