Pakistan Presses to Get a Surrender

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —  A delegation of Pakistani religious and government leaders left today for Afghanistan in what officials characterized as a “positive” bid to persuade the ruling Taliban to turn over alleged terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden and avert a U.S. military assault.

The effort came a day after the Taliban government admitted that Bin Laden was still in Afghanistan and said a messenger had formally conveyed to him a recommendation that he should leave the country voluntarily.

The delegation headed to Kandahar was primarily made up of religious leaders, but included some unidentified government officials, said Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, a spokesman close to President Pervez Musharraf.

“We will continue to make these efforts to the very last, really. I would not call it a last-ditch effort. I would call it a part of a continuing effort by us to convey to the Afghanistan government the need to satisfy the wishes of the international community,” Qureshi said this morning.

But in a public statement issued to coincide with Thursday’s fifth anniversary of the Taliban conquest of Kabul, the movement’s leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was taking a hard line, warning that any Afghans who dare to help the United States will face annihilation.

“Those who are brought in by the Americans will be treated like those who were brought in by the Communists,” he said, a reference to the well-known fate of the last Soviet-installed president of Afghanistan, who was mutilated, dragged behind a truck, shot and then hanged from a lamppost.

Omar also said any American intervention against the Taliban government would fail: “It will be no different from Russia.”

The Taliban’s ambassador to Islamabad confirmed Thursday that Bin Laden has now been personally told of the recommendation by a council of Afghan religious scholars that he leave the country.

“Osama has now received the [clerics’] recommendations,” said Abdul Salam Zaeef. It marked the first time since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States that the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic movement that rules Afghanistan, indicated that it knew Bin Laden’s location or how to communicate with him.

The sending of the Pakistani delegation raised speculation here that the Taliban was seriously considering turning over Bin Laden, but officials said they could not confirm that.

Representatives of the foreign office and the country’s intelligence agency, the ISI, which has had close ties to the Taliban in the past, were expected to be part of the delegation, but Qureshi said he could not identify them.

Earlier, Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammed Khan called it a “positive step” that the 10-member religious delegation had offered to go to speak to Omar. The trip would be the second by Pakistani officials since the terrorist attacks on the United States. The first trip was made by a military-intelligence delegation.

A senior Bush administration official said Thursday that “We’ve been talking to the Pakistani government [about intermediaries], and they came to us and said, ‘We want to send a delegation to the Taliban.’ We said no problem--as long as the message is clear that ‘you have to do what President Bush said you have to do.’ So Pakistan is going to send people, but they will say there are no grounds for negotiations. There is only one way out.”

Word of the new Pakistani effort came as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sought to solidify Arab and Muslim backing for counter-terrorism efforts to kill or capture Bin Laden, a Saudi-born militant who cites Islam in his campaign against the West. Powell met Thursday with King Abdullah II of Jordan and Foreign Minister Ismail Cem of Turkey.

Abdullah, who is to meet with Bush today, was on his way to an official Washington visit Sept. 11 when hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The rescheduled meetings are devoted primarily to Arab attitudes about counter-terrorism.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Abdullah “made quite clear that, first of all, Jordan is committed [to the anti-terrorism coalition] and, second of all, that the many people that Jordan is in touch with in the Arab world are also committed to moving forward with a serious fight against terrorism, and that, I think, was welcome news.”

Later in the day, Cem, whose government is secular but whose population is predominantly Muslim, said, “We are together with the United States in this fight against terrorists.”

Elsewhere, Uzbekistan, strategically situated on Afghanistan’s northern border, inched closer to joining the war on terrorism.

“We are interested in doing away with the sources of terrorism in our region, and we think it natural to help the planned measures of the United States in the fight against terrorism,” Uzbek President Islam Karimov said.

It was Karimov’s strongest indication so far that his country will make its facilities available to U.S. forces. But aides said he has made no final decision and will demand U.S. guarantees for Uzbekistan’s security if he decides to go along. U.S. officials have made it clear they want Uzbekistan to participate.

Karimov’s government faces a severe challenge from an Islamic terrorist organization that it claims is part of the Bin Laden network. But Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, is not a traditional U.S. ally. Karimov is a former Communist Party official who has been accused by U.S.-based human rights organizations of persecuting Muslims who worship at mosques that are not sanctioned by the government.

Uzbekistan fears that the United States will eliminate Bin Laden and then withdraw, leaving Uzbekistan to deal with new waves of insurgents and refugees, said Sherzot Kudratkhodzhayev, Karimov’s spokesman.

He quoted Karimov as saying he was “ready to discuss issues concerning the use of Uzbekistan’s airspace to fight terrorism and solve security and humanitarian” problems.

“In other words,” the spokesman added, “Uzbekistan is ready to allow other countries’ planes use of its airspace for humanitarian missions and, if need be, for other flights that will ensure security that [can] reliably prevent a possible intrusion on its territory.

Also Thursday, a poll by an independent research group in Washington showed that Bush’s approval rating increased dramatically after the Sept. 11 attacks. The poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed that 86% of the public approved of the way Bush is handling his job as president, while only 7% disapproved. In early September, before the attacks, his approval rating was 51% compared with 34% who disapproved.

The poll showed strong support for military action against the terrorists. Nine out of 10 respondents said it was important to take military action to punish the terrorists. An even higher percentage--95%--said it was important to take military action to prevent future terrorist actions.

At the same time, 39% of the respondents said they were very confident that military action would succeed. An additional 37% expressed some confidence of success, while 20% said success was unlikely.

While the administration concentrates on bolstering its support among moderate Arab governments, it is trying to walk a fine line between its current needs and its traditional support for Israel. On Thursday, Boucher said the administration remains committed to its effort to mediate a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

At the same time, Boucher brushed aside the argument of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Israel’s military action against the Palestinians is no different from Bush’s planned war on terrorism.

“There are issues of violence and political issues that need to be resolved in the Middle East [between] Israelis and Palestinians,” Boucher said. “But we all recognize that the path to solve those is through negotiation and that we have devoted enormous efforts to getting back to that path of negotiation.”

By contrast, the administration maintains that it will not negotiate with Bin Laden, other officials of his Al Qaeda network or the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

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Kempster reported from Washington, Reynolds from Moscow and Daniszewski from Islamabad. Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.