Beirut | Thursday
THE supreme leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban militia has said Osama bin Laden, the key suspect in last week’s terrorist attacks on the United States, ”will be the last to leave Afghanistan,” a newspaper reported Thursday. Asharq al-Awsat, an Arabic-language daily published in London, quoted Mullah Mohammed Omar as saying ”Bin Laden will be the last to leave Afghanistan, dead or alive.”
The newspaper said Omar made this statement to a Pakistani delegation that travelled to Afghanistan earlier this week to urge the Taliban to extradite Bin Laden, a multi-millionaire Saudi Islamic militant being protected by the Afghan militia.
US President George W. Bush has said he wants Bin Laden ”dead or alive.”
Thus far, the Taliban have refused to extradite Bin Laden, whom they describe as their ”guest,” and have said they will launch a holy war if the United States attacks their country.
A majority of Afghan religious elders are in favour of protecting bin Laden and appear set on holy war with the United States, a Pakistani news agency said on Thursday.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press, which has close contacts with the Taliban, said most of the hundreds of Islamic scholars meeting in Kabul to decide bin Laden’s fate were making speeches in his support.
”Osama should not be handed over to America, and we should fight against America as our religious duty,” one of the elders, or ulema, was quoted as telling the meeting on Thursday.
The US administration has demanded he be handed over, or warned the Taliban to face the consequences.
But the report said the ulema, gathered from every province of Afghanistan to discuss the crisis and issue an opinion to guide Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, appeared to be in no mood to compromise. – AFP