JACK REDDEN AND PETER MILLERSHIP, Islamabad/Washington | Thursday
AFGHANISTAN’S clerics on Thursday urged Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, Washington’s prime suspect in last week’s nightmare attacks, to leave their country where he has lived as a ”guest.”
The United States, which ordered 100 extra warplanes to the Gulf region in response to the attacks in New York and Washington which left 6 000 dead and missing, had urged the Taliban to hand over the world’s most wanted man or face the consequences.
A grand council, or shura, of Afghanistan’s senior Islamic clerics issued an edict recommending that bin Laden leave their land-locked nation whenever possible, the information minister of the ruling Taliban Islamic movement said. ”To avoid the current tumult and also future similar suspicions, the high council of the honorable ulema (clerics) recommends to the Islamic Emirate (of Afghanistan) to persuade Osama bin Laden to leave Afghanistan whenever possible,” said the edict issued after a two-day meeting of clerics.
Bin Laden should find another place to live, the verdict said.
The US State Department had no immediate comment on the edict.
Earlier, several clerics said in speeches that bin Laden should not be given up. ”Will the issue be resolved by surrendering Osama?” one cleric was quoted as saying. ”No, because America has repeatedly said Osama was not the only issue with Afghanistan.”
The September 11 attacks, in which hijacked airliners plowed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, wreaked havoc across the world’s markets by raising the twin specters of recession and war. US President George W. Bush is looking at ways to save the economy from slumping further.
After Wall Street resumed its slide on Wednesday to three-year lows, major stock markets in Asia weakened on Thursday despite efforts by central banks around the world to bolster confidence by cutting interest rates. Stocks in London were weak in early trade.
Bush will address a Joint Session of the US Congress on Thursday to urge Americans to be vigilant and patient as the United States prepared to strike the first blow in what he has called the first war of the 21st century.
Mullah Mohammad Omar, leader of the purist Islamic Taliban, appeared in a speech to the council, or shura, to rule out a swift handover of bin Laden asking instead for proof of his involvement to be given to an Islamic court.
The Taliban has threatened to call a jihad, or holy war, against the United States if attacked and Omar told the shura on Wednesday that Afghanistan’s enemies were using bin Laden as an excuse to try and destroy the Islamic state.
Washington’s patience with the Taliban was clearly running out ahead of the edict. ”It’s time for action, not negotiations,” said White House representative Ari Fleischer.
Thousands of Afghans fled cities fearing a US punishment strike over bin Laden. Relief agencies warned of a devastating human disaster. With a bitter winter on the way, some refugees are already being forced to eat grass and animal fodder.
Regional tensions over the crisis prompted General Pervez Musharraf, military ruler of neighboring Pakistan, to say his country faced its gravest crisis in 30 years now that it had backed the US-led hunt for the multimillionaire Saudi militant. There are risks of domestic turmoil if Pakistan’s Islamic groups unleash their anger over Musharraf’s decision.
Iran has launched a diplomatic drive to try to head off US strikes against Afghanistan, fearing a humanitarian catastrophe and hardening of Islamic opinion against the West.
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi telephoned European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and foreign ministers of Italy, Pakistan, India and EU presidency holders Belgium to press the point, the IRNA news agency said on Thursday.
Bush’s challenge is to keep the support of his nation and his allies, while at the same time assembling his powerful war machine and pinpointing precise targets.
”What’s the use of sending a $2-million missile into a $10 tent to hit a camel in the butt?” Bush said in private talks with members of Congress last week, according to aides.
Just as his father President George Bush did a decade ago in the Gulf conflict, Bush was working to build a broad global coalition to back his campaign against global terrorism. He is due to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday.
Some of Washington’s allies have sounded notes of caution.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, representing a nation which could prove crucial to any US drive for Arab support, said the focus should be on justice. ”We can’t fight terrorism by being vengeful,” the minister said in Washington.
French President Jacques Chirac and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a news conference the United States must not confuse extremist groups with the broader Islamic world.
”This would be a capital mistake, this would be unjust and this would above all be falling into the trap that the terrorists are setting for us,” Chirac said.
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage will brief the NATO alliance on Thursday about Bush’s plans.
The United States launched ”Operation Infinite Justice,” ordering fighters, bombers and support aircraft to begin moving to bases in or near the Gulf region as early as Thursday.
The Navy sent an additional aircraft carrier to the region which could place up to 500 US warplanes in the Mediterranean, Gulf and Indian Ocean for what Washington has suggested could be a strike against Afghanistan.
The 26th Marine Expeditionary, a 2 200-strong unit that includes special operations capabilities, was also scheduled to depart in a routine six-month deployment to the Mediterranean.
”The United States is repositioning some of its military forces … to prepare for and support the president’s campaign against terrorism and to support efforts to identify, locate and hold accountable terrorists and those who support and harbor them,” Pentagon representative Bryan Whitman said.
The Pentagon said its ”war on terrorism” would involve an integrated strategy using diplomacy, financial pressure and military force. Plans are top secret but choking off the lifeblood of funding to anti-US underground networks is a key element of the strategy.
Switzerland, where banking secrecy has nurtured an industry that manages about one third of the world’s offshore wealth, pledged on Wednesday to support Bush’s scheme.
But a Soviet general who oversaw the withdrawal of Moscow’s defeated forces from Afghanistan in 1989 warned on Wednesday of possible major losses if the US sent in ground troops. Moscow failed in its 10-year campaign to crush hardy Afghan fighters.
Afghanistan’s opposition Northern Alliance said on Thursday the time was right for it to launch an attack on the Taliban, but it wanted to coordinate its action with the United States.
Americans, still in mourning at the loss of so many in the worst attack on US soil, are right behind Bush, polls show.
In Thursday’s address to the nation, Bush will make clear that his campaign is not a replay of the Gulf War, a traditional war conducted by his father that pitted a US-led coalition against Iraq.
”I think the president is going to use this as an opportunity to talk about the sustained nature of this campaign,” White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said. ”I think he will use it as an opportunity to urge patience and reason, and to demonstrate again that his resolve is going to be over a long period of time, not in a single moment.”
The first phase of the US response would be retaliation against those responsible and those who harbor them followed by a longer global struggle against militant networks, she said.
In reaction to security concerns in the area, the US State Department authorized voluntary evacuation of some personnel and relatives of diplomats from the U.S. embassy in Turkmenistan. It also approved the voluntary departure of family members of US embassy staff from Yemen.
Federal law enforcement officials, who have a list of about 200 suspects or witnesses they want to question over the attacks, are also exploring what they call ”clear” support for the hijackers’ network ”by a variety of foreign governments.”
The criminal investigation is the biggest in US history.
”It’s time for those governments to understand with crystal clarity that the United States will not tolerate that,” Attorney General John Ashcroft said without elaborating.
With rescuers digging grimly to find bodies in the rubble of the World Trade Center’s 110-story twin towers, shaken New Yorkers were warned on Wednesday by their mayor to brace for an economic blow after the emotional devastation of the attacks.
The list of missing people stood at 5 422, while the number of confirmed dead was 233.
Optimism was tough to find on Wall Street. Despite herculean efforts to get the nation’s stock markets back in business after their longest shut-down since the Great Depression of the 1930s, investors were clearly worried.
With the top two US airlines joining Boeing in announcing job cuts, the number of aviation jobs lost since the attacks reached almost 100 000, giving a clear illustration of which way the US economy was going. – Reuters