After the attack on the USS Cole, but absent any “proof” of al Qaeda culpability, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger agrees to a State Department proposal making another approach to the Taliban to expel Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan.
U.S. diplomats had already been in touch with Deputy Foreign Minister Abdul Jalil and now Berger orders that the U.S. message to the Taliban “be stern and foreboding.”
Meanwhile, the Clinton administration is also working with the Russian government on new U.N. sanctions against Mullah Omar’s regime.
Between 1998 and 9/11, the United States issued a half dozen threats to the Taliban, both about bin Laden and support for al Qaeda, and to protest the treatment of women. None of the warnings had any effect.