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Taleban warned of US strikes before WTC attack

Did the United States hold out a threat of military action against Afghanistan weeks ahead of the terrorist strikes of September 11?

If so, were the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon pre-emptive strikes launched by Osama bin Laden as a way of warning the US that any action against him or the Taleban could prove costly?

That is the subtext of a story carried by The Guardian.

The story reveals details of a four-day meeting -- third in a series of such efforts aimed at coordinating thinking and action on Afghanistan -- of senior American, Russian, Iranian and Pakistani officials at a hotel in the German capital Berlin in mid-July.

Quoting former Pakistani foreign secretary Niaz Naik, who participated in the meeting, The Guardian says the American delegation said that in case the Taleban regime did not hand over Laden, and Pakistan did not use its influence with the Taleban to bring about such an eventuality, the US would take overt action against Afghanistan.

Naik says he passed on the message to the Pakistani government, which in turn informed the Taleban of the American demands via Kandahar's ambassador in Islamabad.

The Taleban rejected the demand.

America was represented at the meeting by Tom Simons, former ambassador to Pakistan, Karl 'Rick' Inderfurth, former assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, and Lee Coldren, who headed the office of Pakistan, Afghan and Bangladesh affairs in the state department until 1997.

The meeting was convened by Francesco Vendrell, the Spanish diplomat who serves as the United Nations secretary general's special representative on Afghanistan. The Taleban were also invited, but declined to send a representative. Dr Abdullah Abdullah, foreign minister of the Northern Alliance, the chief opposition to the Taleban, was, however, present.

The Guardian report quotes Naik as saying that Simons told him, in response to a question about the probable success of such a US strike, that "they [the US] had all the intelligence and would not miss him this time. It would be aerial action, maybe helicopter gunships, and not only overt, but from very close proximity to Afghanistan."

Simons, however, denies having made such a statement. "We were clear that feeling in Washington was strong, and that military action was one of the options down the road. But details, I don't know where they came from," Simons is quoted by The Guardian as saying.

The Guardian report further points out that President Vladimir Putin of Russia, in an interview released on Friday, said he had warned the Clinton administration about the dangers posed by Laden. "Washington's reaction at the time really amazed me," Putin is quoted as saying. "They shrugged their shoulders and said matter-of-factly: 'We can't do anything because the Taleban does not want to turn him over'."

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