15 September 2004	Wednesday	29 Rajab 1425

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PESHAWAR, Sept 14: Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, had initiated a phone call to Washington - his only known direct contact with US officials - two days after President Clinton sent cruise missiles to destroy Osama bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan in 1998 , according to documents just posted on its website by the Washington-based National Security Archive.

According to the declassified documents, obtained by the archives through the Freedom of Information Act, Mullah Omar denied knowing of any "evidence that Bin Laden had engaged in or planned any terrorist acts while on Afghan soil".

The US State Department responded by providing evidence of Bin Laden's terrorist activities in one of ultimately 33 contacts with the Taliban, 30 by the Clinton administration and three by the Bush administration before 9/11.

All diplomatic attempts to get the Taliban to extradite Osama bin Laden ultimately failed, the documents say. According to the documents, Mullah Omar initiated a phone conversation to the State Department on Aug 22, two days after the Aug 20, 1998 US missile strike on Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for the terrorist attacks on American missions in Kenya and Tanzania and spoke with the director for Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh Affairs, Michael E. Malinowski.

This phone call appears to be the only time Mullah Omar spoke directly with a US government official. He suggested that President Clifton should resign in order to restore America's popularity in the Islamic world and asserted the US missile attack would spread Bin Laden's anti-American message by uniting the fundamentalist Islamic world and would cause further terrorist attacks.

He requested proof that Bin Laden was involved in the Africa bombings, claiming he saw no evidence implicating Bin Laden in terrorist activities since he had been afforded sanctuary in Afghanistan.

Mullah Omar's rhetoric mirrored Bin Laden's, but Mr Malinowski remarked that the Taliban chief "was in no way threatening". The document concludes that this unusual communication from Mullah Omar "is indicative of the seriousness of how the Tall Ban [sic] viewed the US strikes and our anger over Bin Laden".

Highlights of the 16 documents posted on the National Security Archive on Sept 11 include: An October 1998 cable from the US embassy in Islamabad documenting statements made by Taliban foreign minister Maulawi Wakil Ahmed that the Taliban "do not support terrorism", and that Bin Laden was moved to Kandahar "to keep a better watch on him".

In a November 1998 cable from the State Department, a low-level Taliban official assures the American ambassador that Bin Laden is "now under full Taliban control and in no position to commit terrorist acts".

Taliban reassurances on terrorism also include claims that they "have always and will condemn terrorism, including hijacking", according to a February 2000 State Department cable.

Mullah Ehsanullah Ehsan, an influential member of the Taliban Inner Shura, later communicates his belief to US embassy officials that the expulsion of Osama Bin Laden from Afghanistan is not a solution to the 'problem'.

"To where and how should he be expelled?... Bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia to Sudan and from Sudan to Afghanistan." The Taliban official also suggests that Bin Laden did not have the communications equipment to lead his followers in Saudi Arabia and that the Taliban did not know where Bin Laden was. If he is "located in areas under our control, we will definitely impose a ban on his activities".

According to Mullah Ehsan, the real problem is not Bin Laden, but the failure of the US government to recognize the legitimacy of the Taliban government, which he advised America to do "if the US did not want every Afghan to become a Bin Laden."

The US embassy in a cable on Aug 26, 1998, reported that the Taliban had received a letter from the US providing evidence that Bin Laden had engaged in terrorist activities, but that the Taliban saw the letter as 'too general' to warrant Bin Laden's extradition. In any case, the Taliban are 'not in favour' of talks with the US because of the missile strikes.

But in a secret cable on Sept 14, 1998, the US embassy in Pakistan reported that in a meeting in Islamabad with a US official, Abdul Hakim Mujahid, Taliban envoy to the United Nations, described Mullah Omar as the primary reason why Osama Bin Laden continued to be afforded sanctuary in Afghanistan.

The cable quoted Mr Mujahid as claiming that 80 per cent of Taliban officials opposed this policy (Osama's continued presence in Afghanistan), including Taliban Deputy Council leader Mullah Mohammad Rabbani.

Mr Mujahid added that "very few Afghans are in favour of Bin Laden's presence in Afghanistan". He also tried to bolster relations with the US by appealing to commonalities between the United States and Afghanistan, including their shared "dislike of Iran".

In another cable on Oct 7, 1998, the US embassy in Islamabad quoted an unnamed Pakistani official as telling the US ambassador to Pakistan William B. Milam that the Taliban "want to rid themselves of terrorist Osama Bin Laden", and listed three possible ways of doing so.

The unnamed official emphasized option two, in which the US would purchase Bin Laden from the Taliban for a large sum. The cable also refers to recent meetings in which the Taliban claimed that if they expelled Bin Laden, they would be overthrown because the Pashtun tribal system dictated that they must provide refuge to those that sought it.

In an October 11, 1998, meeting with US Ambassador Milam, the first US meeting, with a major Taliban official since the August 20, 1998, US missile strike, the Taliban minister of foreign affairs, Maulvi Wakil Ahmed Mutawwakil, called Bin Laden "a serious problem". (Mr Mutawwakil was arrested, then freed and was last reported to be in his hometown, Kandahar).

As the US stressed the urgency in getting Bin Laden out of Afghanistan, Mr Wakil "continued to give the now repetitive Taliban explanation" that the Afghan people would overthrow the Taliban if they handed Bin Laden over.

Through a cable on February 15, 2001, the State Department informed several key diplomatic posts that the Taliban had delivered a letter from Mr Muttawakil to Secretary of State Colin Powell asking the secretary to reconsider the policies of the previous administration.

The message reiterated the claim that Bin Laden had been contained from engaging in any 'military' activities, and there was no evidence linking him to any terrorist plots.

The Taliban intimated that they would consider trading Bin Laden for US recognition. The Taliban furthermore claimed that Bin Laden was disliked by "80 to 90 per cent" of Afghans. Noorullah Zandran, a Taliban representative, told the Americans "we wished your missiles had hit him".

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