Afghanistan | Monday
AFGHANS were desperate for news on Monday as their secretive Taliban rulers held talks with Pakistani officials on whether to extradite Osama bin Laden and avert war with the United States.
With television banned and domestic media strictly controlled by the Islamic regime, many ordinary Afghans expressed a sense of helplessness as the fate of their country was being decided behind closed doors in the militia’s southern stronghold of Kandahar.
A delegation led by the head of Pakistan’s powerful intelligence service, a long-standing ally and backer of the Taliban, began the crucial talks with the Afghan militia’s leaders early on Monday.
They were expected later on Monday to meet Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who rarely leaves Kandahar even to visit Kabul, to demand the militia comply with United Nations resolutions and extradite bin Laden.
Some frightened families have already begun to escape Kabul for homes in the surrounding provinces, but the vast majority of people in the war-ravaged city could not afford to give up their jobs and leave.
With the expulsion of the last remaining foreigners from the International Committee of the Red Cross, eight aid workers held in custody for allegedly preaching Christianity are the only remaining Westerners in Afghanistan.
Diplomats representing the prisoners left Afghanistan last week along with United Nations foreign staff and all other aid workers, amid fears of a violent backlash against Westerners.
Most ordinary Afghans said they expected a massive US attack, but in the absence of independent news every wild rumour was being taken seriously.
The Afghani currency had fallen from 70_000 to the US dollar before the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, to around 78_000 on Monday.
But food prices have remained fairly constant. The United Nations last week warned that some 1,5-million Afghans could be forced to leave their homes in search of food following the pullout of aid workers.
Around 900 000 Afghans have already become homeless over the past 12 months, due to a severe drought and the continuing civil war between the Taliban and opposition forces. – Sapa, AFP