All those who believe Afghanistan can be pressured into expelling Osama bin Laden from its territory should hear what the Taliban supreme leader, Mulla Mohammad Omar, told Outlook recently: "Half my country was destroyed in the fighting triggered by the Soviet invasion. I'm ready to let the remaining part of Afghanistan be destroyed rather than surrender bin Laden. It's our belief that betraying a good Muslim and a mujahid like bin Laden would harm the Taliban and even lead to their downfall."
Omar's statement vividly illustrates bin Laden's importance to the Taliban regime and its blunt refusal to expel the man considered responsible for orchestrating terrorist attacks worldwide. And yet the international media has been periodically reporting on the Taliban's keenness to negotiate, the most recent being its reported offer to expel bin Laden to a third country for trial on terrorism charges in return for international recognition of their government.
The Taliban's denial of the report was swift and angry. Says Taliban foreign minister Mulla Wakil Ahmad Mutawwakil, "I've given no interview to The Times of London recently and have made no such offer. It's part of the propaganda against us. There's no change in our policy on bin Laden." Mutawwakil's denial, however, didn't deter Pakistan's Gen Musharraf from mooting the idea of a Lockerbie-style trial of bin Laden in a third country as a way out of the impasse. Musharraf suggested this soon after Pakistan's interior minister Lt Gen (retd) Moinuddin Haider met the reclusive Mulla Omar in Kandahar. But the Taliban's reiteration of their rigid policy on the bin Laden issue quickly ended any hopes of a breakthrough.
The Taliban has, till now, made three proposals on bin Laden. It's called for his trial in Afghanistan under Sharia or Islamic law, or placing him under Organisation of Islamic Conference (oic)-monitored checks in Afghanistan, or forming a committee of ulema (Islamic religious scholars) from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and a third Muslim country to decide his case under the Sharia. The US rejected these proposals and insisted on full compliance with the two UN resolutions that essentially demand that bin Laden be handed over to Washington.
There's been talk of a fourth proposal, reportedly hinted at first by New York-based Taliban representative to the UN, Abdul Hakim Mujahid. But quashing such speculation, Mutawwakil told Outlook, "Mujahid said in passing that a fourth proposal should be considered and the doors to negotiations to solve the problem shouldn't be closed after rejection of three earlier Taliban proposals in this context." But considering the wide divergence of opinion between Washington and Kabul on the Laden issue, there's little hope of breaking the impasse.