Pakistan's president: Taliban's days appear numbered

By AMIR ZIA
Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan's president said Monday he believes the United States will launch a military strike against Afghanistan, after the Taliban's supreme leader told the Afghan people that "Americans don't have the courage to come here."

Asked by the British Broadcasting Corp. if the Taliban's days are numbered, the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, replied: "It appears so."

"It appears that the United States will take action in Afghanistan, and we have conveyed this to the Taliban," Musharraf told the BBC, referring to the Islamic militia that rules most of Afghanistan and refuses to hand over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

He added that Pakistan had tried its best to head off a confrontation over bin Laden and the Saudi exile's lieutenants.

In Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, meanwhile, the first World Food Program convoy since the start of the crisis arrived Monday. Eight trucks carrying 218 tons of wheat made it through to the city after a bone-jarring journey over rutted roads, WFP spokesman Khalid Mansour said.

A U.N. humanitarian aid delivery of 40 tons of food and other supplies for Afghan children also arrived in Turkmenistan, which shares a 459-mile border with Afghanistan.

Fighting continued in the north of Afghanistan, with one district whose capture the opposition alliance had reported on Sunday apparently changing hands again. Taliban officials quoted by the Afghan Islamic Press, a private news agency close to the Taliban, said their fighters had retaken the district of Qadis in northeastern Bagdis province.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, denied any role in the terrorist attacks and blamed them on unspecified U.S. policies. In an interview with Taliban-run Kabul Radio, he repeatedly warned the United States to "think and think again" about attacking Afghanistan, which drove out Soviet invaders in the 1979-89 war.

"Americans don't have the courage to come here," he said.

Britain, meanwhile, has frozen $88 million in assets linked to the Taliban, Britain's Treasury said Monday. The actions included a "substantial" amount located in a European bank in London.

Musharraf told CNN in an interview aired Sunday that hopes that the Taliban will hand over bin Laden and accede to other U.S. demands are "very dim."

He confirmed the United States has asked Pakistan to share its intelligence on the Taliban and bin Laden and has requested permission to use Pakistani airspace and logistics facilities.

The Pakistani leader also said he was confident about the security of his country's nuclear facilities, saying "there is no chance of these assets falling into the hands of extremists."

Pakistan has lent its backing to the United States in the confrontation over bin Laden, but outbursts of anti-American sentiment have the government worried. At a rally near the volatile border city of Peshawar on Monday, a prominent Pakistani cleric told hundreds of followers to kill any American they can find if Afghanistan comes under attack.

The Taliban, meanwhile, cracked down on any of their own citizens thought to sympathize with the enemy.

Taliban authorities, in a statement distributed by the Afghan Islamic Press, said six men were arrested for distributing pamphlets supporting the United States and Afghanistan's exiled king – a crime that could be punishable by death.

Top clerics from three provinces also issued an edict Sunday saying any Afghan believed to sympathize with the United States or the former king should be heavily fined and have their house burned down.

Afghanistan's 86-year-old former king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, has been mentioned as a possible unifying symbol should the Taliban regime be toppled.

The northern alliance, the rebel group trying to topple the Taliban, and the ex-king, who's been in exile in Rome since 1973, agreed Monday to convene an emergency council of tribal and military leaders to establish a new government structure for Afghanistan.

However, the Taliban have rejected any role for the former king, and it is unclear whether tribal leaders who oppose the Taliban would want to join in a council closely identified with the northern alliance, which they also oppose.

In an apparent attempt to counter the king's influence, the Taliban announced a power-sharing arrangement Monday with tribes in three southern provinces.

The Taliban, which largely represents the country's Pashtun majority, would likely collapse without the support of the cultural minority tribes.

Also Monday, Kenzo Oshima, U.N. undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, arrived in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad to explore ways to combat what the United Nations calls a humanitarian crisis of "stunning proportions" unfolding in Afghanistan.

Oshima met with Musharraf, who reiterated Pakistan's policy of keeping the border with Afghanistan shut.

The United Nations says a U.S. assault could spur a mass influx of Afghan refugees into Pakistan and other countries neighboring Afghanistan. The world body is scrambling to set up facilities along the border to receive them.

Pakistani officials insist their poverty-stricken country can ill afford a new flood of refugees.

Oshima said Pakistan's concerns were "legitimate," noting that Pakistan already is a haven for 2 million Afghan refugees.

AP-WS-10-01-01 1244EDT