Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia on Saturday accused the United States of forcing it into war as Washington deployed a powerful squadron of bombers to forward bases ahead of a punitive strike.
Kabul's Islamic regime insisted that it could not bend to Washington's demand that it hand over Osama bin Laden, the Saudi radical said by Washington to be behind the September 11 terror attacks on US cities.
"If Osama leaves of his own accord, nobody will stop him. But handing him over to the United States is impossible," said Abdul Hai Mutmaen, a spokesman for the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel said: "If the US attacks Afghanistan we will have no option but to pursue jihad (holy war)."
The Taliban's continued defiance put it firmly in the firing line in President George W. Bush's "war on terrorism", as a massive US military force converged on bases within striking distance of Afghanistan.
On Saturday B-52 bombers capable of launching cruise missiles and high-altitude spy-planes joined the US strikeforce, part of a 40-strong second wave of warplanes deployed to join the jets, ships and special forces troops already on stand-by in the Middle East and the United States.
"They will be moving shortly if they haven't started," an air force official said.
Bush has vowed to use every military and political means to hunt down bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network of Islamic radicals, which Washington blames for the suicide attacks on New York and Washington that left more than 6,800 dead.
On Saturday the diplomatic offensive which has built an unprecedented international coalition of support for the US campaign scored another victory in cutting off one of the Taliban's last links to the outside world.
The government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) broke off relations with the Taliban and left only Saudi Arabia and Pakistan maintaining contacts with the fundamentalist regime.
"The foreign ministry has asked the charge d'affaires at Afghanistan's embassy to leave the country within 24 hours," said the state WAM news agency, adding the UAE had tried and failed to persuade Kabul to give up Bin Laden.
Pakistan said it would not follow suit, but Afghanistan's neighbor and formerly close ally has already distanced itself from the militia under pressure from Washington and has agreed to support US military action.
The United States also secured the support of Turkey, the only majority Islamic member of NATO, which issued a statement saying it would allow US transport planes through its airspace and increase military aid to the Afghan opposition.
Washington's next diplomatic target will be Iran, with whom it has not had diplomatic relations since 1980. Tehran is no friend of the Taliban, but is a traditional US foe and has opposed military action.
"We're anxious to explore whatever opportunities for cooperation there might be in the fight against all forms of terrorism, not just one kind of terrorism," US Secretary of State Colin Powell said when asked about Iran.
Tehran said Saturday that it had received a message from Washington, and the British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, whose government has been Bush's strongest ally in the crisis, was due to visit Monday for talks.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, in which suspected Islamic militants thought to be linked to al-Qaeda crashed three hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, the United States has won global support for reprisals.
On Friday a crisis meeting of EU foreign ministers agreed unanimously to support America's right to strike back at terrorism.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said the EU declaration "does not just express verbal solidarity (with the US), but indicates clearly that member states are ready to support necessary military action."
Bush has made the capture of bin Laden, a 44-year-old exiled Saudi multimillionaire and Islamic extremist, the key short-term goal of what he has warned the US people will be a long-term war against terrorism.
Bin Laden is believed to a "guest" of the Taliban in Afghanistan, where he first went in the 1980s to support resistance to the Soviet occupation, then with support from Pakistan and the United States.
Bin Laden has since turned his organization against US interests in protest at the presence of US troops on Saudi soil -- the home of the Muslim holy cities of Medina and Mecca -- after the Gulf War, and he is the prime suspect in the bombing of US embassies in East Africa and the warship USS Cole.
Mutawakel, whose regime has sheltered Bin Laden since 1996, played down reports that Bin Laden had already left Afghanistan in anticipation of US action, saying: "I have not heard any report that he has left Afghanistan."
He was the most senior Taliban official to comment on bin Laden's whereabouts since Thursday, when Afghan Islamic scholars adopted a resolution recommending that the Taliban persuade bin Laden to leave.
Mutawakel said: "The Islamic Emirate has listened to the resolution of the ulema (scholars) and, as usual, paid it the utmost respect," adding that he said he did not know if it had been passed on to bin Laden.
Pakistani sources with close links to bin Laden also dismissed the rumors, saying bin Laden was eagerly awaiting his chance to fight the Americans.
"This is the moment he has been waiting for. His prayers are coming true," one source said.
In what may prove to be the first military contact between US forces and the militia, Taliban officials claimed Saturday to have shot down an unmanned US spy plane. Reports were contradictory however, and not confirmed by US sources.
The September 11 attacks had a devastating effect on the world economy, sending stock markets plunging and triggering a crisis in the air travel industry, where spiraling insurance prices and falling ticket sales have threatened to ground entire fleets.
They also rocked the diplomatic landscape, as the world's remaining superpower told its friends and rivals that following the massacre all states would be either with Washington, or "terrorists, and share their fate".
The vast majority of the world's governments, including those in the Islamic world, have fallen in behind Washington, despite rising tensions in Pakistan and other Muslim countries where there is some public support for bin Laden.
In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, four people were killed Friday during protests by hardline Islamic groups, but a feared countryside wave of public protests did not fully materialize, giving the military regime breathing space.
Aid agencies have warned of a impending humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, where they say an exodus of refugees fleeing drought, civil war and US attacks could top 1.5 million -- KABUL (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
