Search the Internet          Tips  Links: Terror in America

ISI chief travels to Kandahar to persuade Taleban

K J M Varma in Islamabad

Pakistan on Friday sent a delegation of clerics and officials, including Inter Services Intelligence chief Lieutenant General Mehmud Ahmad, to Kandahar in yet another bid to persuade Taleban supreme spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar to hand over Osama bin Laden.

The 16-member delegation met Mullah Omar, but details of the discussion were not available, Pakistan foreign office spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan said in Islamabad.

The meeting was held a day after Taleban delivered a message to bin Laden, prime suspect in terror strikes in US, asking him to leave the country voluntarily. This is the second Pakistani delegation to visit Kandahar in the last one week.

However, leaders of three pro-Taleban religious parties refused to join the delegation, saying they would visit Afghanistan only after being invited.

Asked about the mandate given to the delegation, Khan said, "We do not define the mandate. Of course, ISI director general is accompanying them. He headed the first delegation. The mandate was to influence the Afghan leadership, to assess the gravity of situation and what the international community expected of them."

Explaining the importance of inclusion of the ISI chief in the delegation, Khan said Mehmud 'is fully conversant with the position of the Pakistan government'.

Asked if the ISI chief carried any message for the Taleban leadership, he said it was the same delivered during his first visit and that is 'meet the concerns of the international community'.

He said while the role of the ISI chief was limited in Friday's talks, the clerics could discuss a specific message of their own.

The Pakistani delegation's visit to Kandahar coincided with publication of an interview of bin Laden in a pro-Taleban newspaper Ummat in Karachi, in which the Saudi dissident denied his involvement in terror attacks in US.

He said, "Freezing of his bank accounts and those of Al-Qaida movement would have no impact, as by the grace of God, Al-Qaida has more than three different alternative financial networks."

Denying his involvement in the strikes, he said, "I was neither aware of these attacks nor would I support killings of innocent men, women and children."

"As a Muslim, I will not tell lie," bin Laden said in an interview, which the paper said was written in response to questions it had delivered to Taleban officials. The veracity of the interview could not be ascertained independently.

While official sources said this was the last chance for the Taleban to listen to its last 'friend', US Secretary of State Colin Powell rejected a reported suggestion by the militia that civil rights leader Jesse Jackson could mediate to break the deadlock.

"We have nothing to negotiate, they know what our position is," Powell said in Washington.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration does not seem to be in hurry for retaliatory action against Afghanistan but is concentrating its effort on intelligence gathering, diplomacy and financial measures in padlocking the war chests of global terrorism.

This was evident from the statement of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who said: "We are not leaping into this. We are moving into it in a measured way."

Bush got a major boost in his attempt to forge an international coalition to combat terrorism, when several Islamic countries including, Jordan and Syria extended their full support.

Agencies

The Attack on America: The Complete Coverage

EXTERNAL LINK
For Further Coverage and Information, you may visit www.saja.org/roundup

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report