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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| US may offer aid for toppling Taliban |
| 2001-10-01 |
| Intense speculation surrounded the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden even as news came on Sunday of a secret memorandum proposing that the United States should offer aid to groups willing to overthrow the Taliban regime. It was reported that the Taliban had said they knew where bin Laden was and that he was under their protection. They were also said to have proposed further negotiations. But the Kabul regime had earlier said it had no knowledge of bin Laden's location. Other reports said the US had received conflicting intelligence information according to which bin Laden might have slipped out of Afghanistan and gone to the Frontier province, Somalia or Chechnya. The White House, reacting to the Taliban statement that Kabul had knowledge of bin Laden's whereabouts, said this did not alter the fact that the Taliban knew what they had to do, and that was to hand over bin Laden to justice. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in view of the contradictory statements by the Taliban, no one knew what to believe, and in any case, the US-led campaign was not aimed at particularizing a person or organization, but was directed against all terrorists and terror groups. In the secret memorandum, National Security Council and State Department officials were reported to have said: "The Taliban do not represent the Afghan people, who never elected or chose the Taliban faction... We do not want to choose who rules Afghanistan, but we will assist those who seek a peaceful, economically developing Afghanistan, free of terrorism." Confirming the memorandum, whose disclosure coincides with renewed efforts to bolster former king Zahir Shah and the Northern Alliance as alternatives, CNN recalled that earlier President George Bush had said the US was not interested in "nation-building," an indirect suggestion that administration policy was not aimed at creating a new Afghan government. On Saturday, Mr Bush in a radio address had said: "The United States respects the people of Afghanistan and we are their largest provider of humanitarian aid. But we condemn the Taliban, and welcome the support of other nations in isolating that regime." But the memo, while stressing that the immediate, short-term goal of the US campaign was to "eradicate the terrorism that led to the strikes that killed the citizens of 78 countries on Sept 11", suggests a clear preference for a new government - a development that could create problems for Pakistan. Attempts to set up some kind of alternate government-in-exile may already have begun. In a statement from Rome, Zahir Shah, who met a US Congressional delegation on Sunday, said Taliban opponents had created a "Supreme Council for the Salvation of Afghanistan." They have also set up a "military structure with the participation of various resistance commanders and tribal elders and some professional army officers." |
| Posted by:Fred |