Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said yesterday its supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was likely to accept an edict of Islamic clerics recommending the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, leave the country.
The recommendation was made earlier yesterday by a council of top clerics convened by Omar to consider the fate of the dissident wanted by the US.
"A demand has been made ... we are sure that His Excellency Amir-ul-Momineen [Leader of the Faithful] has always acted on the verdicts of the clerics and from now onward will act on the basis of the clerics' guidance," Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told a news conference in Kabul.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Although the edict gave no deadline, it appeared that the verdict by the clerics on bin Laden deprived the militant multi-millionaire of the protection of a tradition of Pashtuns -- Afghanistan's dominant ethnic group -- to safeguard their guests at the cost of their lives.
Asked when bin Laden, wanted by US President George W. Bush "dead of alive" for last week's devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, would leave, Muttaqi said: "It will take time."
He said he did not know how the Saudi-born militant, for years a "guest" of Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, could go.
Washington says bin Laden is the prime suspect in last week's devastating attacks and has vowed to hunt him down and punish all those who protect him, raising the prospect of a military operation in war-torn Afghanistan.
It was unclear whether bin Laden would leave, and if so where he would go, or even whether the edict would be enough to prevent the US from following through with its threats.
"Our hope now is that America considers the decision of the ulema [clerics] and the issue is solved," Muttaqi said.
"And we are sure that America will think about it and find a solution," he added. "War and force is not the only solution."
But the Taliban warned that the US faced a formidable and battle-hardened enemy in Afghanistan, whose people repulsed the British in the 19th century and the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
"We can present in the history of Islam lots of examples when Muslims were fewer and the enemy forces were much larger," he said.
While Omar, who holds the original Islamic title of Amir-ul-Momineen as the head of a Muslim state, had made a new offer of talks with the US, "then what is the necessity of war?" Muttaqi said.
Asked what could happen if bin Laden refused to leave Afghanistan, Muttaqi said: "Basically no order has been made.... A demand has been made ... recommendations have been made to encourage Osama ... so he goes to another suitable place."
The edict said Muslims should launch a holy war, or jihad, if the US prosecuted a war against the Taliban.
"If infidels invade an Islamic country and that country does not have the ability to defend itself, jihad becomes a definite obligation of all the world's Muslims," it said.
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