A Pakistani delegation appears to have failed to persuade the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden. Mr bin Laden is the main suspect in the 11 September terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
The senior Pakistani clerics and leaders from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban regime signed a joint declaration in the southern city of Kandahar in which they agreed to hold further talks on future co-operation.
The Taliban authorities say that Mr bin Laden has received their message asking him to leave the country voluntarily. They say that the request was handed to him in person because he has no access to a telephone or fax machine.
The recommendation that Mr bin Laden leave the country was made by a council of clerics a week ago and was endorsed by the Taliban leader.
In a separate development, a Gulf diplomat has been reported as saying that Saudi Arabia has agreed to allow the US use their air command facilities in the kingdom to fight Mr bin Laden and the Taliban. He added that neighbouring Qatar has also decided to let US cargo planes land to load with supplies pre-positioned in the emirate.
However, the Iraqi media has accused the US of seeking to enforce "the law of the jungle" in its efforts to build an international anti-terror coalition. The Ath-Thawra newspaper, which is controlled by Iraq's ruling Baath Party, said that the issue of terrorism needs to be tackled in a rational way rather than through the policy of one-upmanship and deliberate escalation.
King Mohammed of Morocco has called on Muslim leaders to promote the image of Islam and condemn those who seek to equate the faith with extremist acts of violence. The king was speaking in Rabat during an address to a conference of the Islamic parliaments' union, a body of the 56-member Organisation of Islamic Conference.
Reports say that he seemed to accept that those responsible for the American atrocities were probably Islamic militants. However, he described such people as detractors from Islam and the exploiters of lost souls.
