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Pakistan Delegation Meets Taliban
KABUL, Sept 28 (News Agencies) - A Pakistani delegation of religious scholars met with Taliban leaders in Afghanistan on Friday, in a last ditch attempt to persuade the Islamic militia to hand over Osama bin Laden.
The delegation, composed mainly of Islamic clerics, but accompanied by Pakistani military intelligence chief General Mahmood Ahmed, held talks with Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
Their mission coincided with the publication in Pakistan of an interview with bin Laden, in which he reportedly issued a fresh denial of any involvement in the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington for which he has been blamed by the United States.
"As a Muslim, I will not lie," bin Laden said in the interview with the Urdu-language
Ummat daily, the authenticity of which could not be confirmed.
The paper said it had received written responses to its questions from bin Laden through contacts with Taliban leaders.
"I was neither aware of these attacks, nor would I support the killing of innocent men, women and children," bin Laden was quoted as saying.
He went on to add that jihad, or struggle, he declared in 1998 against "anti-Islamic" countries like the United States and Israel would survive his own death or capture.
"Jihad will continue even if I am not around," he said.
Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan said the clerics' delegation had an independent agenda, but stressed that intelligence chief Ahmed was carrying no new proposals from Islamabad.
"We are not undertaking any negotiations," Khan said. "The position of the Pakistan government is that in view of the gravity of the situation, the Taliban leadership should be responsive to what the international community is expecting of them."
The Taliban have repeatedly defied U.S. ultimatums to hand over bin Laden, who has been living as their "guest" in or around Kandahar since 1996.
An earlier Pakistani delegation led by Ahmed had met with Omar in Kandahar last week and delivered a message from Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf urging the Taliban to "act with prudence" because the life of the Afghan people was at stake.
"That first effort was solely on the part of the Pakistan government," Khan said. "This delegation is on the part of an important segment of the people of Pakistan and we hope that it will produce results," Khan said.
"I wouldn't characterize it as the first, second or last chance. Our objective is that a positive outcome is achieved."
Pakistan is the only country in the world which still recognizes the Taliban, whose isolation was underlined Friday when it emerged that its former ally, Saudi Arabia, had agreed to let the United States use facilities on its territory for military action against Afghanistan.
Among the clerics in the Pakistan delegation was Nizammudin Shamazai, head of one of the largest Islamic seminaries in Karachi and a former tutor of several Taliban leaders. He is believed to be very close to Omar.
Musharraf has pledged, "unstinted support" for the U.S.-led war on terrorism, but his government is deeply concerned at the prospect of military action against its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.
Pakistan shares a 2,500-kilometer (1,500-mile) border with Afghanistan and houses more than two million Afghan refugees. It is feared hundreds of thousands of new refugees will try to cross the border in the event of a U.S. attack.
Meanwhile, a Taliban official quoted by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press agency said a British journalist was arrested in Afghanistan on Friday for entering the country illegally.
The journalist, Yvonne Ridley, a London-based correspondent for the Sunday
Express, was arrested together with two guides some 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the Pakistani border, near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad.
"She was wearing Afghan dress," the spokesman said, adding that Ridley "was not carrying any passport."
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