Friday September 21 5:57 AM ET

Taliban Spurns Bush's Ultimatum on Bin Laden By Steve Holland and Tom Heneghan

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s ruling Taliban on Friday rejected an ultimatum from President Bush (news - web sites) to surrender Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and said a U.S. military strike on the country would be a ``showdown of might.''

Girding his nation for a long ``war on terrorism'' after last week's hijacked airliner attacks on America, Bush earlier warned the Taliban to turn over the Saudi-born Islamic militant and his leading followers or ``share in their fate.''

``We are not ready to hand over Osama bin Laden without evidence,'' Kabul's ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, told reporters in Islamabad.

He said an edict by leading Afghan clerics on Thursday declaring bin Laden should be persuaded to leave the country ''whenever possible'' was not binding on the government.

Bush on Thursday said all evidence gathered so far pointed to bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization as responsible for the carnage at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon (news - web sites) that left more than 6,500 people dead or missing.

With the United States rapidly deploying warplanes and aircraft carrier groups to the Middle East and Indian Ocean, he gave the Taliban a nonnegotiable ultimatum that also included shutting Qaeda training camps in the impoverished country.

``The Taliban must act and act immediately,'' Bush said in a speech to a joint session of Congress. ``They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate,'' he said.

Setting out his doctrine in a resolute address met by two dozen standing ovations, Bush told foreign governments, ``Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists'' in a conflict he portrayed as a fight to safeguard civilization.

``From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime,'' Bush said.

CRIES OF PROTEST

Tens of thousands of Afghans, including Taliban officials, have streamed out of major cities for the relative safety of the countryside and for the borders of Pakistan and Iran amid growing expectations of a punishing U.S. military strike.

Zaeef, speaking through an interpreter, said the Taliban would never surrender if the United States launched attacks on their Central Asia nation and that Muslims had an obligation to respond with jihad, or holy war.

``It would be a showdown of might,'' he said. ``We will never surrender to evil and might.

On Thursday, the council or shura of clerics said bin Laden, a 44-year-old multimillionaire based in Afghanistan as a ''guest'' of the Taliban, should be persuaded to leave. Zaeef said the move was only ``a suggestion.''

``If Osama voluntarily leaves Afghanistan, he may,'' Zaeef told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press agency.

``The ulema's (clerics') decision was not to forcibly (remove him), or that he must leave Afghanistan. Rather, the ulema's decision was that he should be persuaded to leave.''

Aiming to head off charges he is waging war on Islam, Bush called bin Laden's militants traitors to the peaceful teachings of their faith and said America's fight was not with Muslims.

In Afghanistan's neighbor Pakistan, where support for the Taliban runs high, demonstrators set fire to shops and stoned cars on Friday in protest at President Pervez Musharraf's decision to side with Washington in the hunt for bin Laden.

Protesters in Peshawar, home to at least 2 million Afghan refugees, burned an effigy of Bush, while armored personnel carriers guarded the U.S. consulate in the city of Karachi.

Police in Indonesia said they had assigned snipers to guard the U.S. embassy in Jakarta after threats from Muslim radicals, while India's insurgency-plagued Kashmir (news - web sites) Valley was gripped by a general strike after Muslim guerrillas called for protests.

ASIAN, EUROPEAN STOCKS TUMBLE

Fears of war, coupled with concerns over a global economic recession, pushed Asian markets down further, with Japan's Nikkei average hitting fresh 17-year lows before paring some of the losses to finish 2.35 percent lower at 9,554.99 points.

Photos

Reuters Photo European stocks also tumbled at the opening, but financial analysts said Bush's powerfully delivered speech could give U.S. shares a boost when trading starts on Wall Street after a nerve-jangling four-day slide to three-year lows.

``He was supposed to deliver a knock-out punch and he did,'' said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer at First Albany Corp. ``I am hopeful this speech will attract some buyers, but I don't know.''

The hijackings on Sept. 11 destroyed the New York World Trade Center's 110-storey twin towers, blew a hole in the Pentagon, and brought down a plane in rural Pennsylvania.

Hours before Bush spoke, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (news - web sites) raised the missing toll at the Trade Center to 6,333. Only five people have been rescued from the rubble that once was the symbol of U.S. financial might, and none since Sept. 12.

``I will not forget this wound to our country, or those who inflicted it,'' Bush said. ``I will not yield. I will not rest. I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.''

Addressing the U.S. armed forces, the world's most powerful military machine, he said: ``Be ready ... The hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud.''

A snap opinion poll taken after the speech, broadcast live on prime-time television, showed the Republican president, in office only since January, had overwhelming public support.

The ABC NEWS/Washington Post survey of 526 adults showed 91 percent approved of the way Bush was handling the U.S. response to the attack. Ninety percent also said they supported taking military action against the ``groups or nations responsible.''

Bush told Americans to prepare for a long conflict fought with diplomatic, financial and military means against a network of ``thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries.''

``Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there,'' Bush said. ``It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.''

FRENCH ARRESTS

French police on Friday said they had arrested seven or eight people suspected of belonging to extremist Islamic groups thought to be planning attacks on U.S. interests in France.

Police made the arrests after an Algerian man being held in the United Arab Emirates was alleged to have confessed to planning an attack on the U.S. embassy in Paris and gave names and addresses of extremists living in the French capital.

Bush also announced the creation of a Cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security, with outgoing Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge as its first director.

The new office will coordinate efforts by 40 federal agencies and state and local governments to overcome the weaknesses in domestic security laid bare by last week's attacks.

The attacks have pushed an already slowing U.S. economy ever closer to recession and led to massive job losses at U.S. airlines, reeling from the costs of stiff new security measures and plunging demand as a result of the hijackings.

Congressional leaders and the White House agreed on Friday on a $15 billion bailout plan for the industry which the House of Representatives was expected to vote on later in the day.

Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, said the package included $5 billion in immediate cash aid, with the rest in loan guarantees and provisions for the government to consider paying some victims' claims.

Working to form a global coalition for his campaign, Bush met Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on Thursday and with British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) whom he presented to the joint session of Congress as a true friend.

Blair, stopping in New York on his way to Washington, hailed a ``surging of the human spirit'' around the world and the strengthening of U.S.-British ties following the attacks, in which some 200 Britons are feared to have died.

Some allies, while expressing support for a campaign against terrorism, have urged restraint by the United States.

Prince Faisal, representing a nation crucial to any U.S. drive for Arab support, said the focus should be on justice. ''We can't fight terrorism by being vengeful,'' he said.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

Answers

we can't fight terrorism when the culprits are being shielded by a lame group of religious fanatics, none of which care one wit for the people and country they claim to represent.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

I thought President Bush handled the religious part of this really well. He mostly nullified any call to arms to other countries, from the taliban in Afghanistan. To me, President Bush is doing a great job. I see things being put in place, before action is taken.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

I think his speech might have been geared towards the Afghanis rising up against the Taliban. I heard a report this morning that students said they wouldn't go along with the Taliban's decision.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

How well will their convictions hold up when the first US ships sail into the area or the first bombers fly overhead? The Afgans who battled the Russians had a slight advantage because I don't think most Russian foot soldiers were that interested in winning: they just wanted to survive their tour of duty and return home. American troops, on the other hand, are ANGRY and MOTIVATED, not to mention well supplied with many high tech toys.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001