Tag: Mullah Omar

30 October 2000

Posted on by William Arkin
Sandy Berger passes the baton to Condoleezza Rice

 

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.

22 September 1998

Posted on by William Arkin
Mullah Omar: Qandahar centric; controls military and funds; close ties to UBL and ISID; increasingly suspicious of Rabbani's supporters; key supporters—Foreigh Minister, Governor of Herat, Governor of Mazar-e Sharif

 

Three years before 9/11, the Taliban diplomatic envoy is expelled from Saudi Arabia over the refusal of the government in Kandahar to hand over Osama Bin Laden.

After the African embassy bombings in August 1998, Washington sought Saudi Arabia’s help in forging a break between the Taliban and bin Laden, specifically in getting Mullah Omar to eject bin Laden from the country.

Prince Turki bin Faisal (also known as Turki al-Faisal)—head of Saudi intelligence and bin Laden’s earlier sponsor during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan—went to Afghanistan to meet with Omar, head of the Taliban. The meeting is the stuff of legend, the powerful Saudi prince being not just rebuffed and insulted, but treated with less than princely dignity, and leaving in a swirl of robes.

When the Taliban ambassador was expelled from Riyadh, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah happened to be in the United States on a visit and met at the White House with President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. He reported on the earlier Turki visit to Afghanistan and expressed Saudi frustration with the unorthodox regime. Saudi Arabia wouldn’t formally break off diplomatic relations with the Taliban until September 25, 2001.