The Taliban show no signs of surrendering bin Laden
Sep 20th 2001
BY THURSDAY, it looked unlikely that the Taliban would be ready to hand over Osama bin Laden, whom they have sheltered since they took power in Afghanistan in 1996. The offer by Mullah Muhammad Omar, their reclusive one-eyed leader, for Mr bin Laden's case to be decided by a panel of clerics from any three Islamic countries has been made before—and rejected by the Americans in no uncertain terms. An Islamic conclave advised the Taliban government to persuade him to leave voluntarily. But this stops well short of America's demands—and is not likely to be taken too seriously by the Afghan leadership.
This may on the face of it seem to be a baffling miscalculation by the Taliban of their own best interests. Not only is the downside—American military action against their country—dreadful to contemplate, but the benefits that would flow from handing over the wanted man would be impressive too. They might include the lifting of crippling sanctions, the possibility of investment (American oil companies have been keen to run pipelines from the Caspian to the Arabian Sea through Afghanistan) and a sharp increase in much-needed aid. Until a year or so ago, the Taliban were eagerly seeking diplomatic recognition and better relations with the West. To help get them, they destroyed their country's opium crop, slashing global production of heroin in half.
Their bid for diplomatic respectability came to nothing, for a simple reason. America made it clear that the price was the handover of Mr bin Laden, whom it wanted at that time for the deadly attacks on two American embassies in Africa in 1998. When the Taliban refused to surrender him, America pushed for, and got, last December, the imposition of tough UN sanctions on Afghanistan. The Taliban's relations with the outside world have been much more hostile since then.
Mr bin Laden, in other words, is apparently non-negotiable. And the reason is that he and the Arab soldiers he commands are a powerful force inside Afghanistan in their own right, his money and men constituting an important element in the Taliban's ability to squeeze their enemies, the Northern Alliance, into an ever-smaller wedge of territory in the north-east. A graphic example was provided two weeks ago when two Arab journalists blew up Ahmad Shah Masoud, the commander of the Northern Alliance's forces, along with themselves. It seems probable that this assassination was carried out by Mr bin Laden's men. So powerful have the Arab fighters in Afghanistan become that ordinary Afghans have been heard to complain that it is they, not the Taliban, who really control the country.
Discontent, however, is something that the American-led coalition may be able to work with. The Taliban are mainly Pashtu-speakers from the country's south and east. The ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras of the north and west resent their hegemony. For everyone, the Taliban's social strictures have become more onerous, while the initial delight at their restoration of law and order is fading. Several protests broke out over the summer. They followed the series of bombs that have exploded outside Taliban offices over the past few years; one destroyed Mullah Omar's home in Kandahar. But translating all this into the overthrow of the Taliban will be an uphill struggle
Sep 20th 2001
BY THURSDAY, it looked unlikely that the Taliban would be ready to hand over Osama bin Laden, whom they have sheltered since they took power in Afghanistan in 1996. The offer by Mullah Muhammad Omar, their reclusive one-eyed leader, for Mr bin Laden's case to be decided by a panel of clerics from any three Islamic countries has been made before—and rejected by the Americans in no uncertain terms. An Islamic conclave advised the Taliban government to persuade him to leave voluntarily. But this stops well short of America's demands—and is not likely to be taken too seriously by the Afghan leadership.
This may on the face of it seem to be a baffling miscalculation by the Taliban of their own best interests. Not only is the downside—American military action against their country—dreadful to contemplate, but the benefits that would flow from handing over the wanted man would be impressive too. They might include the lifting of crippling sanctions, the possibility of investment (American oil companies have been keen to run pipelines from the Caspian to the Arabian Sea through Afghanistan) and a sharp increase in much-needed aid. Until a year or so ago, the Taliban were eagerly seeking diplomatic recognition and better relations with the West. To help get them, they destroyed their country's opium crop, slashing global production of heroin in half.
Their bid for diplomatic respectability came to nothing, for a simple reason. America made it clear that the price was the handover of Mr bin Laden, whom it wanted at that time for the deadly attacks on two American embassies in Africa in 1998. When the Taliban refused to surrender him, America pushed for, and got, last December, the imposition of tough UN sanctions on Afghanistan. The Taliban's relations with the outside world have been much more hostile since then.
Mr bin Laden, in other words, is apparently non-negotiable. And the reason is that he and the Arab soldiers he commands are a powerful force inside Afghanistan in their own right, his money and men constituting an important element in the Taliban's ability to squeeze their enemies, the Northern Alliance, into an ever-smaller wedge of territory in the north-east. A graphic example was provided two weeks ago when two Arab journalists blew up Ahmad Shah Masoud, the commander of the Northern Alliance's forces, along with themselves. It seems probable that this assassination was carried out by Mr bin Laden's men. So powerful have the Arab fighters in Afghanistan become that ordinary Afghans have been heard to complain that it is they, not the Taliban, who really control the country.
Discontent, however, is something that the American-led coalition may be able to work with. The Taliban are mainly Pashtu-speakers from the country's south and east. The ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras of the north and west resent their hegemony. For everyone, the Taliban's social strictures have become more onerous, while the initial delight at their restoration of law and order is fading. Several protests broke out over the summer. They followed the series of bombs that have exploded outside Taliban offices over the past few years; one destroyed Mullah Omar's home in Kandahar. But translating all this into the overthrow of the Taliban will be an uphill struggle
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