Taliban condemn attacks in U.S., deny bin Laden\'s involvement

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan's hardline Taliban rulers rejected suggestions that Osama bin Laden, whom they are sheltering, could be behind the devastating terrorist attacks in the United States Tuesday.\n"We have tried our best in the past, and we are willing in the future to assure the United States in any kind of way we can that Osama is not involved in these kinds of activities," the Taliban's foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, told reporters.\nMuttawakil said Tuesday's attacks on New York, Washington and elsewhere in the United States were "from a humanitarian point of view surely a loss and a very terrifying incident." Asked whether the Taliban condemned the attacks, he said: "We have criticized and we are now again criticizing terrorism in all its forms."\nBin Laden, the exiled Saudi millionaire indicted in the United States on charges of masterminding the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, has lived here since 1996 under the protection of the ruling Taliban religious militia. Washington accuses him of running an international terrorist network.\nA London-based Arab journalist said Tuesday that followers of bin Laden warned three weeks ago that they would carry out a "huge and unprecedented attack" on U.S. interests.\nAbdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said he received a warning from Islamic fundamentalists close to bin Laden but did not take the threat seriously.\n"They said it would be a huge and unprecedented attack but they did not specify," Atwan said in a telephone interview in London.\n"We usually receive this kind of thing. At the time we did not take the warnings seriously as they had happened several times in the past and nothing happened. "This time it seems his people were accurate and meant every word they said."\nAtwan, who interviewed bin Laden in 1996 and has since maintained contacts with his followers, said he believed the attack on the World Trade Center in New York was the work of "an Islamic fundamentalist group" close to bin Laden.\nBut Abdul Hai Muttmain, the spokesman for the Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, dismissed allegations that bin Laden could be behind the attacks in the United States.\n"Such a big conspiracy, to have infiltrated in such a major way is impossible for Osama," Muttmain told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. He said bin Laden does not have the facilities to orchestrate such a major assault within the United States.\nThe Taliban say bin Laden's communications have been taken away from him, but several sources close to him -- including his family members in Saudi Arabia -- say bin Laden has regular access to satellite telephones and other sophisticated communication equipment.\nMeanwhile, foreign aid workers and even Taliban commanders, who have spoken on condition of anonymity, say the number of Arab nationals in Afghanistan has increased in recent months.\n"They are in Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad. They have training centers in every province of Afghanistan," said one Taliban commander who would not give his name.\nThe Taliban, which espouses a harsh brand of Islamic law, has resisted U.S. demands to hand over bin Laden.\nAfter the attacks in East Africa three years ago, Washington retaliated with a blistering missile attack in August 1998, sending more than 70 Tomahawk cruise missiles into eastern Afghanistan apparently targeting training camps operated by bin Laden.\nThe U.S. attacks killed about 20 followers of bin Laden's, but bin Laden escaped unhurt. Since then he has been forced by the Taliban rulers to stop giving interviews and making statements.\nIn Kabul foreign aid workers were keeping a low profile and security measures were heightened with most expatriates being advised to stay in their homes for fear of retaliatory attacks from the United States should evidence implicate bin Laden.\nBut Muttawakil said there is no fear among the Taliban.\n"Since there is no reason for an attack and we are not expecting any reprisal attack we are not taking any precautions," he said.