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February 12, 2001

On Sunday government officials said they were willing to consider proposals for resolving their differences with the United States over the Saudi terrorism-suspect. The Taliban's offer follows media reports that the FBI, CIA and Russia's Federal Security Service are joining forces to control bin Laden.

Severe U.N. sanctions against the Taliban, which were further tightened in December, also appear to have demoralized the ruling Afghan militia.

Bin Laden is wanted in the United States for his alleged involvement in the bombing of two of American embassies in East Africa in August of 1998 that killed 224 people. "We are ready to work out a new proposal for to resolve the dispute" over Bin Laden, who has been hiding in Afghanistan since 1996, says Taliban Foreign Minister, Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel.

On Saturday the United States ordered the Taliban to close their office in New York, their only outpost in the country. Initially, Taliban reacted by announcing that they will close down the United Nations political office in Afghanistan if their office in New York was closed.

But 24 hours later they proposed discussing the issue with the United States as media reports suggested that Washington was serious about enforcing every item of the U.N. sanctions, including the closure of all Taliban outposts.

Recognized only by Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the Taliban regime has few missions outside the Afghan territory.

In another move the United Nations refused to allow the national Afghan airline, Ariana, to fly two of its planes to Pakistan for safety checks. Under UN sanctions Ariana is banned from making international flights. The sanctions aim at securing bin Laden's expulsion, and forcing the closure of alleged terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, which the Taliban say do not exist.

In its latest issue the TIME magazine reported that the FBI, CIA, and Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) are joining forces to control bin Laden. The magazine says that Washington intelligence experts plan to use the pooled information to track and extradite bin Laden lieutenants who venture abroad.

However, it is the unilateral arms ban that appears to have hurt the Taliban most. A part of the UN sanctions, the ban forbids UN members from supplying weapons to the Taliban regime while allowing the opposition Northern Alliance to receive weapons from its allies. Encouraged by the ban, the opposition has increased its attacks on Taliban targets and last week it orchestrated two bomb attacks in Kabul as Pakistan's interior minister was visiting the Afghan capital. One bomb exploded close to his plane.

"We urge the Americans not to close the doors. We want talks and we are considering a proposal on the issue of Osama bin Laden," said the Taliban foreign minister but he did not explain what this proposal was and how would it meet the U.S. demand for bin Laden's expulsion.

In the past the Taliban have demanded evidence from the U.S. of bin Laden's alleged terrorist activities, offering a trial by the Afghan Supreme Court. They offered to keep him under the surveillance of monitors from the 53-nation Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). They also urged the OIC to send a panel of clerics from Muslim state to try bin Laden.

Washington has rejected all these offers as "impractical and unacceptable." The trial of bin Laden's four alleged accomplices resumes in New York next week.

Qatari television has reported that bin Laden's Al-Qaeda group has denied any links to a key witness at the trial, Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, who had presented himself as a close associate of the Saudi dissident.

Al-Fadl told the court in New York that bin Laden formed Al-Qaeda in 1989 to fight the United States and to topple pro-western Arab governments. He said that in 1993 bin Laden attempted to buy uranium to produce a nuclear device.

Expected to last for 10 months, the trial is taking place under unprecedented security in a Manhattan court.

(C) 2001 UPI All Rights Reserved.

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