WIRE: 09/12/2001 11:42 am ET

Fears Grow in Afghanistan of US Retaliation Strikes

KABUL (Reuters) - Fears mounted in Afghanistan on Wednesday that Washington may unleash retaliation on the country for hosting Osama bin Laden who is suspected of masterminding the worst attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor.

Security was noticeably tightened in war-ravaged Kabul, although officials of the ruling Taliban movement told a news conference within hours of the attacks that Washington had no reason to retaliate against Afghanistan.

Foreign aid workers -- fearing they would become victims of local revenge if the United States does attack Afghan targets linked to bin Laden -- began to leave on Wednesday.

Experts forecast an early strike on Afghanistan if evidence hardens the exiled Saudi guerrilla chief was behind the attacks.

Senior U.S. officials said initial evidence points to bin Laden's organization, blamed for the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa and other anti-American attacks.

President Bush has said the United States would go after not only those behind the attacks but those nations which harbored and supported them.

ACTS OF WAR

Addressing the nation on Wednesday, Bush called the attacks that killed possibly thousands of people "acts of war."

Non-governmental aid organizations, which had already felt Taliban pressure in recent months, advised staff to keep a low profile and many were joining the exodus from Afghanistan.

"I think the fear is there, particularly after the evacuation of the aid workers," said Reuters journalist Tahir Ikram in Kabul. "But I don't see any sign of panic yet."

Taliban authorities in Kabul on Wednesday beefed up security at government offices, thoroughly checking vehicles entering government compounds, witnesses said.

Kabul's airport was closed after an overnight rocket attack by anti-Taliban forces based north of the Afghan capital that initially spawned fears a U.S. retaliation had already begun.

Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, repeated the fundamentalist movement's position it could consider extraditing bin Laden if provided proof of his involvement.

"It is premature," Zaeef said in Islamabad when asked if his radical Islamic movement would consider expelling bin Laden, believed to be holed up in mountainous Afghanistan.

"If any evidence is presented to us, we will study it."

BIN LADEN DENIAL

Concerned over a repeat of U.S. reprisals on Afghanistan that followed the 1998 embassy attacks in Africa, the ruling Taliban issued hasty denials that the man they describe as their guest was capable of mounting such a vast coordinated conspiracy.

The Urdu-language Khabrain daily in Pakistan said bin Laden had told the newspaper through "sources close to the Taliban," he was not involved in Tuesday's attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

"The terrorist act is the action of some American group. I have nothing to do with it," he was quoted as saying in the newspaper, which has a reputation for sensationalism. The report could not be independently confirmed.

But experts said few besides bin Laden -- who honed his guerrilla skills in the 1980s commanding Arab fighters funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency -- have the cash or expertise to mount such attacks.

"A lot of things point to him," said Sen. Richard Shelby, vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.

The tall, bearded 44-year-old, who sees himself in a holy war, commands Islamic militants willing to die attacking the United States, which they see as the ultimate enemy.

FIVE ARAB MEN

Two Boston newspapers reported that authorities in Massachusetts had identified five Arab men as suspects and had seized a rental car containing Arabic-language flight training manuals at the city's Logan International Airport, where two of the hijacked planes originated.

Investigators found a copy of the Koran, a videotape on how to fly commercial jets and a fuel consumption calculator in a pair of bags meant for one of the flights that crashed into the World Trade Centre, the Boston Globe said.

The Boston Herald said the suspects entered the United States from Canada. Two of the men were brothers whose passports were traced to the United Arab Emirates, and one was a trained pilot.

The Taliban's opponents in the Northern Alliance, which now controls only the northeast corner of Afghanistan, have accused bin Laden of taking an increasingly prominent role in the Taliban fight for control of all the country.

On Wednesday, the alliance ambassador in China accused the Taliban, bin Laden and Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency of being behind the attack on the United States.

"We believe that this is a triangle between Osama bin Laden, ISI, which is the intelligence section of the Pakistani army, and the Taliban," Abdul Basir Hotak told Reuters.

Pakistan, which denies it is providing military support to the Taliban, issued a stiff condemnation of the attack and has not commented on suggestions of links to bin Laden or the Taliban.

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2001

Answers

But experts said few besides bin Laden -- who honed his guerrilla skills in the 1980s commanding Arab fighters funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency -- have the cash or expertise to mount such attacks.

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2001