Pakistan says U.S. evidence implicates bin Laden

10/05/2001

By GREGG JONES / The Dallas Morning News

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan said Thursday the United States has enough evidence to indict Osama bin Laden in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a striking declaration that bolsters U.S. efforts to build a broad coalition for a war on terrorism.

The Pakistani statement comes as a massive U.S. military force stands poised to launch an attack on Mr. bin Laden and his Taliban militia hosts in Afghanistan.

"We have seen the material that was provided to us by the American side yesterday," said Riaz Muhammad Khan, the Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman. "This material certainly provides sufficient basis for indictment in a court of law."

Mr. Khan noted that "the U.S. investigations are continuing, so whatever they have provided may subsequently be supplemented by additional material." He urged the United States to share its evidence with global leaders. .

In strategic terms, the endorsement of the U.S. case by such a large Muslim country could carry significant weight in the Islamic world, where there is deep suspicion that the United States is unjustly pointing the finger at Mr. bin Laden, analysts said.

"It will help silence the skeptics and also further contribute toward the isolation of Osama bin Laden from the Muslim people at large," said Rifaat Hussain, chairman of the department of defense and strategic studies at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. "I think this will help pacify those who, up to now, were not convinced that Osama bin Laden's organization was capable of pulling off this kind of operation."

The Pakistani endorsement also will lend "credibility to any military action the United States is contemplating taking," Dr. Hussain said.

Mr. Khan said Pakistan had no plans to use the evidence in another effort to persuade its estranged Taliban allies to heed U.S. demands to surrender Mr. bin Laden or face punishment for providing him with safe haven.

But Dr. Hussain and other analysts said the Pakistani government would likely discuss the evidence with leaders of the radical Taliban regime through private channels.

"The very fact that the government has acknowledged that they have seen evidence and it is credible will have an impact on the Taliban," said Dr. Hussain.

The evidence could also give Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a domestic boost and undermine protests from militant Muslim groups, analysts said. The groups have denounced the United States for threatening the Taliban with military strikes and condemned Gen. Musharraf for pledging "full support" of the U.S. campaign.

Pakistan has emerged as a key ally in the Bush administration's declared war on terrorism, both because of its location along Afghanistan's eastern border and its place as the world's second-most populous Muslim country.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is scheduled to visit Pakistan and meet with Gen. Musharraf on Friday, another highly symbolic gesture underscoring Pakistan's strategic importance in the expected U.S. military campaign against Afghanistan.

Mr. Khan, the foreign ministry spokesman, refused to discuss the specifics of the U.S. evidence linking Mr. bin Laden to the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. However, he did say the material "related to both pre-11 Sept. incidents and also to the 11 Sept. events."

Before the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. officials accused Mr. bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization of involvement in the suicide bomb attack on the USS Cole last year in Yemen and the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in east Africa.

Pakistani officials urged the United States to share more widely the results of its investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks before launching any strikes on Afghanistan.

"We think there would be an advantage if the evidence is publicized, because it would strengthen the case of the United States in taking appropriate actions against people responsible for these terrorist acts," Mr. Khan said.

President Bush has ruled out Taliban requests to see evidence linking Mr. bin Laden and his lieutenants to the U.S. attacks.

Inside Afghanistan, the opposition Northern Alliance vowed a general offensive against the Taliban to coincide with any U.S. military strikes. But commanders of the opposition group, which forged a united front this week with deposed Afghan King Mohammad Zahir Shah, said that discussions with U.S. officials had not resulted in a formal alliance.