Taliban Refuses to Surrender Bin Laden

[David Morris]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52802-2001Sep18.html

Taliban Refuses to Surrender Bin Laden
Afghan People Are Urged to Prepare For a Holy War

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 19, 2001; Page A01

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 18 -- The leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban 
militia rebuffed a demand by Pakistani officials to surrender alleged 
terrorist Osama bin Laden to avert a U.S. military attack, government 
sources here said today.

The Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar, has formally shifted responsibility for 
deciding bin Laden's fate to a council of senior Islamic clerics. But a 
source familiar with the talks in Afghanistan between a Pakistani delegation 
and the Taliban leadership said Omar told Pakistan's intelligence chief, 
Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, "Osama will be the last person to leave Afghanistan." 
The Pakistani delegation left this evening.



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