guardian.co.uk
Threat of US Strikes Passed to Taliban Weeks Before NY Attack
Jonathan Steele, Ewen MacAskill, Richard Norton-Taylor and Ed Harriman
Saturday September 22, 2001
Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible
American military strikes against them two months before the
terrorist assaults on New York and Washington, which were
allegedly masterminded by the Saudi-born fundamentalist, a
Guardian investigation has established.
The threats of war unless the Taliban surrendered Osama bin
Laden were passed to the regime in Afghanistan by the
Pakistani government, senior diplomatic sources revealed
yesterday.
The Taliban refused to comply but the serious nature of what
they were told raises the possibility that Bin Laden, far from
launching the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York
and the Pentagon out of the blue 10 days ago, was launching a
pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as US threats.
The warning to the Taliban originated at a four-day meeting of
senior Americans, Russians, Iranians and Pakistanis at a hotel
in Berlin in mid-July. The conference, the third in a series
dubbed "brainstorming on Afghanistan", was part of a classic
diplomatic device known as "track two".
It was designed to offer a free and open-ended forum for
governments to pass messages and sound out each other's
thinking. Participants were experts with long diplomatic
experience of the region who were no longer government officials
but had close links with their governments.
"The Americans indicated to us that in case the Taliban does
not behave and in case Pakistan also doesn't help us to
influence the Taliban, then the United States would be left with
no option but to take an overt action against Afghanistan," said
Niaz Naik, a former foreign minister of Pakistan, who was at the
meeting.
"I told the Pakistani government, who informed the Taliban via
our foreign office and the Taliban ambassador here."
The three Americans at the Berlin meeting were Tom Simons, a
former US ambassador to Pakistan, Karl "Rick" Inderfurth, a
former assistant secretary of state for south Asian affairs, and
Lee Coldren, who headed the office of Pakistan, Afghan and
Bangladesh affairs in the state department until 1997.
According to Mr Naik, the Americans raised the issue of an
attack on Afghanistan at one of the full sessions of the
conference, convened by Francesc Vendrell, a Spanish diplomat
who serves as the UN secretary general's special representative
on Afghanistan. In the break afterwards, Mr Naik told the
Guardian yesterday, he asked Mr Simons why the attack should
be more successful than Bill Clinton's missile strikes on
Afghanistan in 1998, which caused 20 deaths but missed Bin
Laden.
"He said this time they were very sure. They had all the
intelligence and would not miss him this time. It would be aerial
action, maybe helicopter gunships, and not only overt, but from
very close proximity to Afghanistan. The Russians were listening
to the conversation but not participating."
Asked whether he could be sure that the Americans were
passing ideas from the Bush administration rather than their own
views, Mr Naik said yesterday: "What the Americans indicated
to us was perhaps based on official instructions. They were very
senior people. Even in 'track two' people are very careful about
what they say and don't say."
In the room at the time were not only the Americans, Russians
and Pakistanis but also a team from Iran headed by Saeed Rajai
Khorassani, a former Iranian envoy to the UN. Three Pakistani
generals, one still on active service, attended the conference.
Giving further evidence of the fact that the Berlin meeting was
designed to influence governments, the UN invited official
representatives of both the Taliban government in Kabul and the
anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the
Northern Alliance's foreign minister, attended. The Taliban
declined to send a representative.
The Pakistani government took the US talk of possible strikes
seriously enough to pass it on to the Taliban. Pakistan is one of
only three governments to recognise the Taliban.
Mr Coldren confirmed the broad outline of the American position
at the Berlin meeting yesterday. "I think there was some
discussion of the fact that the United States was so disgusted
with the Taliban that they might be considering some military
action." The three former US diplomats "based our discussion
on hearsay from US officials", he said. It was not an agenda
item at the meeting "but was mentioned just in passing".
Nikolai Kozyrev, Moscow's former special envoy on Afghanistan
and one of the Russians in Berlin, would not confirm the
contents of the US conversations, but said: "Maybe they had
some discussions in the corridor. I don't exclude such a
possibility."
Mr Naik's recollection is that "we had the impression Russians
were trying to tell the Americans that the threat of the use of
force is sometimes more effective than force itself".
The Berlin conference was the third convened since November
last year by Mr Vendrell. As a UN meeting, its official agenda
was confined to trying to find a negotiated solution to the civil
war in Afghanistan, ending terrorism and heroin trafficking, and
discussing humanitarian aid.
Mr Simons denied having said anything about detailed
operations. "I've known Niaz Naik and considered him a friend for
years. He's an honourable diplomat. I didn't say anything like
that and didn't hear anyone else say anything like that. We were
clear that feeling in Washington was strong, and that military
action was one of the options down the road. But details, I don't
know where they came from."
The US was reassessing its Afghan policy under the new Bush
administration at the time of the July meeting, according to Mr
Simons. "It was clear that the trend of US government policy
was widening. People should worry, Taliban, Bin Laden ought to
worry - but the drift of US policy was to get away from single
issue, from concentrating on Bin Laden as under Clinton, and
get broader."
Mr Inderfurth said: "There was no suggestion for military force to
be used. What we discussed was the need for a comprehensive
political settlement to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan,
that has been going on for two decades, and has been doing so
much damage."
The Foreign Office confirmed the significance of the Berlin
discussions. "The meeting was a bringing together of Afghan
factions and some interested states and we received reports
from several participants, including the UN," it said.
Asked if he was surprised that the American participants were
denying the details they mentioned in Berlin, Mr Naik said last
night: "I'm a little surprised but maybe they feel they shouldn't
have told us anything in advance now we have had these tragic
events".
Russia's president Vladimir Putin said in an interview released
yesterday that he had warned the Clinton administration about
the dangers posed by Bin Laden. "Washington's reaction at the
time really amazed me. They shrugged their shoulders and said
matter-of-factly: 'We can't do anything because the Taliban does
not want to turn him over'." |
