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Bin Laden Disappears as Afghanistan on the Brink
KABUL, Sept 23 (News Agencies) - Afghanistan's Taliban said Sunday it had no idea of the whereabouts of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden in a move seen as a last desperate bid to pull back from the brink of war with the United States.
It came as the United States confirmed that the Taliban had claimed first blow in the looming conflict by confirming that an unmanned U.S. plane had been lost over Afghanistan. The Taliban claims it shot down a spy plane Saturday.
A Taliban spokesman said bin Laden could not be found when officials tried to inform him of its decision to endorse last week's recommendation by religious scholars that he leave the country voluntarily.
The Taliban implied bin Laden was still inside Afghanistan, although he could just as easily have already slipped out of the country - a development that would complicate U.S. plans for possible strikes against the country.
The United States immediately brushed aside the surprise announcement as a distraction that would not have any bearing on its build-up of a massive military force within striking distance of the country that has sheltered bin Laden since 1996.
"Of course they know where he is," U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
"Osama bin Laden is missing. We are searching for him," Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmaen said, according to the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), a Pakistan-based private news agency with close contacts to the Taliban.
He said Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had endorsed a fatwa, or edict, from Afghanistan's religious elders last week asking the militia to persuade bin Laden to leave the country voluntarily.
"We are still making efforts to locate him. When he is found the edict will be delivered to him. Then he will decide whether to leave Afghanistan or not," Mutmaen said, indicating bin Laden was still in the country.
The militia, which rules most of the country, had earlier reiterated that it had no intention of handing their "guest" bin Laden to the United States, despite the threat of war and an impending humanitarian catastrophe.
The United States has ruled out any negotiations on its main demands: an immediate, unconditional handover of bin Laden and the closure of the alleged terrorist training camps.
"The U.S. demand [for bin Laden's immediate extradition] is not acceptable to any Afghan Muslim and we are also not ready to accept it," Mutmaen said earlier in the day.
"There is no change in our stand. We cannot compromise on our religion of Islam and Afghan traditions. We are relying on Allah almighty and we cannot sever ties with our religion."
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Afghans are traipsing around the war-ravaged country in search of some sort of refuge.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said it hoped to begin emergency airlifts of supplies into the country soon.
The World Food Program suspended deliveries into the country last week - a move that major aid organizations have said was premature.
The WFP, which feeds 3.8 million Afghans, has less than three weeks of supplies inside the country.
With more than one million people displaced, children are particularly vulnerable as the freezing Afghan winter approaches, threatening to catch them in the open without shelter or adequate food.
"We know that children froze to death last year and we fear that they will be exposed in the next few months to the same conditions," UNICEF spokesman Gordon Weiss told AFP in neighboring Pakistan.
"The most pressing need is that we ensure that we get supplies into the country, but we don't know where these people are moving to - they don't know either."
He said the first of six UNICEF emergency airlifts had been scheduled to leave late last week from Afghanistan's northern neighbor Turkmenistan, but had been held up pending government approval.
The Taliban's official news agency said Sunday that an unidentified plane had been shot down in the northern province of Samangan.
Abdul Hanan Himat, head of the Bakhtar agency, said the plane had crashed a few kilometers outside Samangan provincial capital Aibak, about 120 kilometers (74.4 miles) southeast of the Uzbek border.
A team of technicians dispatched to the area recovered two cameras and moved the wrecked plane to a secret location, according to Taliban sources quoted by AIP.
Military sources in Uzbekistan said U.S. electronic surveillance planes were operating from an air base outside the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
Unconfirmed reports in Kabul on Sunday suggested the Taliban has been distributing thousands of AK-47 assault rifles to civilians to fight in a
jihad, or struggle, against a possible U.S. strike.
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