Pakistan Shuts Doors On Bin Laden

ISLAMABAD, Wednesday - Pakistan said on Wednesday it would not serve as a safe haven for Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden or his followers if they sneaked into the country from neighbouring Afghanistan to escape a hunt for them. A Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters Pakistan had no information about the whereabouts of bin Laden, who Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban movement says has gone missing after a council of Islamic clerics called for him last week to leave the country. Asked at a news briefing whether Islamabad had taken enough precautions to prevent bin Laden and other members of his al-Qaeda group entering Pakistan disguised as Afghan refugees, he said: “We do not have any information about Osama bin Laden or (other) leaders of al-Qaeda. “But I don’t think they will be confident of finding a safe haven in Pakistan.” Riaz Mohammad Khan also said the present U.S.-led campaign to track down bin Laden and his network after the devastating suicide hijack air attacks in the United States should not be regarded as a fight against Afghanistan or its people. “The fight is not against a people or a particular country; the fight is against terrorism,” he said. “Pakistan cannot join any hostile action against Afghanistan or the Afghan people. We are conscious that the destinies of the two peoples are intertwined,” he said. Khan said Pakistan had joined the U.S.-led international coalition to fight terrorism. “We want the Afghan government also to be responsive to what the international community is asking them to do.” Washington says bin Laden is the prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington that left nearly 7,000 people dead. Bin Laden has lived in Afghanistan for years as a “guest” of the Taliban, which has refused to hand him over without receiving credible evidence of his alleged involvement in the September 11 carnage and some previous deadly anti-U.S. attacks. The Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, endorsed the clerics’ edict at the weekend that bin Laden voluntarily leave Afghanistan “whenever possible”. But at the same time, the Taliban said bin Laden was found to be missing when the authorities tried to convey the edict to him. Reuters Ends