Echoing comments from other senior officials, the US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that "there is no question" Saudi-born militant leader Osama bin Laden was involved in Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.
A delegation of senior Pakistani officials will go to Afghanistan today to demand that the ruling Taliban militia hand over bin Laden to the US, a top Pakistani government official said.
The delegation, which is traveling to the Taliban's headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar, will issue an ultimatum to the religious militia: either deliver bin Laden, the leading suspect in the attacks, or risk a massive retaliatory assault, the official said yesterday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The Taliban will be told that the international community has been mobilized to attack Afghanistan if the Taliban, a devoutly Muslim militia that rules roughly 95 percent of the country, refuse to turn over bin Laden, the official said.
There was no indication that the Taliban had been given a deadline to decide, although CNN reported Washington sources as saying that they had three days.
Bin Laden, the exiled Saudi millionaire already indicted in the US on charges of masterminding the bombings of two US embassies in Africa in 1998, has been living in Afghanistan since 1996.
The Taliban have steadfastly refused to hand him over despite two rounds of UN sanctions that have cut off funds to the national airline and isolated Taliban leaders.
The Taliban say bin Laden is a guest. The Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, has said in the past that delivering bin Laden to non-Muslims would be akin to betraying a tenet of Islam.
Also Sunday, the Taliban called an "urgent" meeting of clerics from throughout Afghanistan. At that meeting the clerics voiced their support for the Taliban, condemned the US and demanded proof of bin Laden's involvement in the airborne attacks on the World Trade Center's twin towers and the Pentagon.
Word of the Pakistani delegation's trip came a day after Pakistani military and diplomatic officials said Islamabad has agreed to a list of US demands for a possible attack on Afghanistan, including a multinational force to be based there.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who joined President George W. Bush and other officials at Camp David, Maryland, thanked Pakistan on Saturday for its willingness to cooperate in any military action the US may take in the region.
Powell said the US is winning support for a global anti-terrorism coalition. The State Department urged foreign envoys to impose travel bans on terrorists and cut off their money channels.
Rumsfeld said yesterday the "terrorist network" responsible for the attacks on America is "bigger than one person" and the US will go after countries that harbor "terrorists" and their organizations.
"We have no choice," Rumsfeld said on the Fox News Sunday program. "Either the United States acquiesces to the terrorists and becomes isolationist, turns inward, gives up our freedom ... We can't do that."British Prime Minister Tony Blair also warned yesterday that "we are at war with terrorism" after the devastating attacks against New York and Washington.
He urged caution as to how the US should retaliate, warning it was premature to talk about the exact nature of any military response.
"It is a time for cool heads, calm nerves," he said. "What happened on Tuesday was an attack not just on the United States, but an attack on the civilized world."
He added: "I can assure you, the whole of Europe will stand together" with the US.
Blair confirmed that the death toll of Britons, probably 200 to 300, among the dead would be the highest in any attack since the end of World War II.
Asked about building widespread support for possible military strikes, the prime minister went on: "This is something obviously we discussed with the American president.
"Secondly, there has to be an agenda we construct at an international level to dismantle the machinery of international terrorism."
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