Islamic clerics discuss bin Laden

By AMIR SHAH
Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan – As hundreds of Islamic clerics met Wednesday to discuss the fate of Osama bin Laden, the leader of the Taliban criticized Washington for unfairly vilifying the terrorist suspect, but said Afghanistan was willing to meet with U.S. officials to discuss the matter.

The council of clerics meeting in the rocket-damaged Presidential Palace broke up Wednesday with no decision, and was to convene for a second day Thursday, said Qadratullah Jamal, the Taliban's culture and information minister.

In a statement read to the clerics Wednesday, the ruler of Afghanistan's hard-line Islamic militia, Mullah Mohammed Omar, ordered them to decide whether to extradite bin Laden, the key suspect in last week's terrorist attacks in the United States, according to the Taliban's official Bakhtar news agency.

The meeting opened with the reading of Omar's speech, which said that Washington had portrayed bin Laden as a terrorist without any evidence in an effort to harm the Taliban, according to the Afghan Islamic Press, a Pakistan-based Afghan news agency with close ties to the Taliban.

``Osama has denied his involvement. It is unfortunate that America does not listen to us and levels all sorts of charges and threatens military action,'' Omar said in the speech. ``We have held talks in ... the past with U.S. governments several times, and we are ready for more talks.''

But he said: ``If America still wants to attack us ... and to destroy the Islamic government of Afghanistan, we want to get the religious decision from you, our respected religious scholars.''

The clerics also were expected to decide whether Muslims in Afghanistan and other countries should declare a holy war against the United States if its forces attack Afghanistan.

As the meeting, which was closed to the general public, got under way, dozens of turbaned Taliban soldiers armed with rocket-launchers and Kalashnikov rifles stood guard outside the giant cement walls that surround the palace, lined with gaping holes from years of fighting in Kabul.

As many as 1,000 clerics from across the country, some driving hundreds of miles along dirt roads, traveled to the capital to help the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan decide its next step regarding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Omar, who remained at the Taliban's headquarters in Khandahar, is believed to have the ultimate decision-making power.

Bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire and an exile from his own country, is the main suspect in the case, and Pakistan officials met with Taliban leaders in Afghanistan earlier this week to discuss the U.S. demand to extradite him for prosecution.

The officials returned to Islamabad on Tuesday with no agreement. However, they said that the Taliban were considering the possibility of extraditing bin Laden to a country other than the United States, if the Taliban receive international recognition of their government, and if the United Nations drops sanctions that it has imposed against Afghanistan.

The Taliban, an Islamic militia that has ruled most of the country since 1996, is only formally recognized by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Taliban follow a strict interpretation of the Quran and have been placed under economic sanctions twice by the United Nations to press earlier U.S. demands to hand over bin Laden for trial.

The United States believes bin Laden has played a role in a number of devastating attacks, including the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in which 231 people were killed.

U.S. officials are trying to build a global coalition to fight terrorism using a carrot-and-stick approach to reward friends and punish nations that don't sign up for the war.

``In different nations the carrot may be bigger; in other nations, the stick may be bigger,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Tuesday.

The Taliban, which condemned last week's terror attacks in the United States, have consistently refused to extradite bin Laden, calling him a ``guest'' and saying that to hand him over to non-Muslims would betray a tenet of Islam.

On Monday, the Taliban said that God would protect them if the world tried to ``set fire'' to Afghanistan for sheltering bin Laden, who is accused of leading terrorist cells around the world from his sanctuary and training camps in Afghanistan. The Taliban broadcast on Tuesday also called on all Muslims to wage holy war on America if it attacks the poor and war-ravaged central Asian country.

Since taking control of most of Afghanistan, the Taliban have declared holy wars against the northern-based, anti-Taliban alliance, Russia and Iran, but never the United States.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has enraged some politicians and clerics in his Muslim country by agreeing to provide U.S. forces with access to his country's air space and land in a proposed attack on Afghanistan. He was to make a televised address to his people on Wednesday evening.

Many Pakistanis living along the 1,500-mile border with Afghanistan have promised to join a jihad, or holy war, against America, and possibly their own government, if there are retaliatory strikes.

On Wednesday, Afghans at a crowded refugee camp in Jalozai, Pakistan, about an hour's drive from Afghanistan, urged Muslim clerics in their country to continue to protect bin Laden.

A few miles away, in Peshawar, Pakistan, thousands of people marched through the streets of the city near the Afghan border, shouting pro-Taliban slogans and burning a U.S. flag.

``Will you fight the jihad if America attacks Afghanistan?'' shouted the leader of the demonstration, Mulana Abdul Lamil.

``Yes!'' screamed the crowd.