WASHINGTON: The US sought Pakistan’s help in 1998 to prevent Osama bin Laden from launching an Al Qaeda attack against it, with then president Bill Clinton asking then prime minister Nawaz Sharif to use his influence over the Taliban in averting the imminent strike.

Mr Clinton telephoned Mr Sharif from Oval office and asked for his help after an intelligence input about an imminent Al Qaeda attack, according to the declassified memorandum of the telephonic conversation made available by the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas.

“I need your personal help,” Mr Clinton had told Mr Sharif on December 18, 1998, after he received intelligence information about the possible Al Qaeda attack.

During the telephonic conversation, which lasted about six minutes, the American president asked Mr Sharif to use his influence over the Taliban leaders, who then were the rulers of Afghanistan, to stop the attack.

“I understand your anxiety and your position, Mr President… We will do everything we can, I assure you,” Mr Sharif said, according to the declassified document running into three pages.

“I will send my people tomorrow to Afghanistan to meet with them and discuss this with them, and tell them this will not be in their interest and it will serve no purpose, that it will invite retaliation and a world reaction,” the prime minister said.

“I will do whatever I can, I can assure you of that, but you must understand they are very stubborn and uncooperative,” Mr Sharif is quoted as saying to Mr Clinton.

“I understand, but there’s a difference between being uncooperative and not giving him up, and being uncooperative and allowing him to conduct operations. Those are fundamentally different things. I hope you can bring that home to them,” the American president said.

By arrangement with the Times of India