Despite pressure at home, Pakistan sends delegation to Afghanistan

By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON – Pakistan is on the spot at home as it carries a U.S. demand to neighboring Afghanistan's rulers to expel Osama bin Laden and his terrorism network.

Pakistani Islamic militant groups threatened the government but President Pervez Musharraf went ahead and sent a delegation of Pakistani officials to Kabul Monday.

They carried a U.S. warning that Afghanistan faced attack if it did not expel bin Laden, the head of a terrorism network who operates from Taliban-controlled territory on Afghanistan.

According to Taliban-run radio, Taliban leaders will let the council of Islamic clerics decide whether to hand him over.

President Bush has identified the former Saudi multimillionaire as the primary suspect in the terrorist attacks on the United States last week.

Even before getting the Afghan government's response, Pakistan agreed to close its 1,560-mile border with Afghanistan and permit U.S. military overflights, a pleased senior American official said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Islamic hard-liners, protested in Pakistan, however, burning U.S. flags and shouting their support for bin Laden.

Another predominantly Muslim country, Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan, said Monday it would consider lending its military bases to U.S. forces for staging strikes.

"Uzbekistan is ready to discuss any form of cooperation in the struggle against international terrorism in our region, including the deployment of U.S. forces," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bakhodyr Umarov said.

Musharraf, who conferred by telephone with Bush on Saturday, faced a chilling warning from Pakistani militants that they would take up arms for Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia against the United States.

Bush spoke by phone Monday morning with President Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates and thanked him for his willingness to help the United States in the overall war, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell declared Sunday that the Taliban risks the "full wrath" of the United States if it does not expel bin Laden, the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks on the United States.

Powell said the United States would make its own overture to Taliban officials in the next few days. "They must expel this organization," he said of the network bin Laden directs from his sanctuary in Afghanistan. "They must help us destroy this organization."

Taliban, a Muslim fundamentalist movement, "will be held accountable for the help they have given the organization," Powell said on CNN.

The choice for the Taliban, he said, is "either help us rip them up" or suffer "the full wrath of the United States and other countries."

Reaching out for diplomatic, economic and, potentially, military support, Bush, Powell and U.S. diplomats worldwide explained America's case against bin Laden. Only a few countries, most notably Iraq, were excluded from the diplomatic roundup.

Powell telephoned the foreign ministers of Greece, Turkey and Mexico on Saturday and Dutch Foreign Minister Jozias Van Aartsen on Sunday.

So broad is the coalition the administration is trying to put together that help is being sought from Syria, which the State Department lists as a sponsor of terrorism; even Iran may be solicited.

But, Powell said of the Iranians: "If they are interested in fighting terrorism it has to be terrorism not just related to this incident but terrorism of the kind that they have sponsored in the past."

Iran provides weapons to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon for their attacks on Israel.

Last April, in its report on terrorism, the State Department said there were indications Pakistan was providing the Taliban with material, fuel, funds, technical assistance and military advisers.

Responding to reports Pakistan is conditioning its cooperation on excluding India and Israel from any coalition, Powell said, "We understand the sensitivities that would be involved in anything that might involve India or Israel."

But, he added, "we do not have a multinational force going anywhere yet."

At the same time, Powell condemned President Saddam Hussein of Iraq as "an irrelevant leader sitting there with a broken regime."

Powell told CBS' "Face the Nation" that "we will keep his regime under sanctions and we will do what is necessary when it becomes necessary and when we choose to."

AP-WS-09-17-01 1145EDT