KABUL, Afghanistan - The cost of handing over Osama bin Laden could be high for Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban rulers. But the price of protecting the key suspect in terror attacks on the United States could be even greater with rumbles in Washington of retaliatory air strikes.
Either way, it's a virtual no-win situation for the rigidly Islamic militia that rules most of this destitute country, already ravaged by more than two decades of war.
Not long ago, the Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, said that to surrender bin Laden to the United States would betray Islam - impossible for a movement whose very existence is rooted in its image with Islamic purists.
In a statement read Friday by Taliban officials in Pakistan, Omar said investigators were trying to link bin Laden to the attacks ``unjustifiably and without any reason.''
Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, told reporters that handing over bin Laden would be a ``long process,'' and U.S. authorities would have to provide evidence against him.
``So far the Americans have not contacted us on providing any evidence. Our position is very clear,'' he said. ``We have condemned the attacks.''
Giving up bin Laden could be military suicide for the Taliban, who still have several front lines north of Kabul, where thousands of their Arab allies and Islamic guerrillas from countries such as Uzbekistan, Pakistan and the breakaway republic of Chechnya are battling an anti-Taliban alliance. If the Taliban gives in to demands for bin Laden's surrender, the foreign militants might abandon their fight.
With many Afghans disillusioned by the relentless combat, the local pool of warriors has run low, increasing the Taliban's dependence on foreign fighters - euphemistically called ``guests.''
There may be as many as 6,000 foreign militants, according to one international observer who was among those evacuated from Kabul on Thursday.
``They keep them for the fighting. They are coming and going all the time,'' a high-ranking Taliban official said on condition of anonymity. ``It gives them more influence right now.''
Growing international criticism of the Taliban, including the latest round of economic sanctions that took effect in January, brought more militants into Afghanistan. Store owners, foreign workers and residents have all reported their increasing numbers on the streets of Kabul.
They are coming from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria and Yemen. Their numbers and money have increased their influence within the Taliban leadership, say Western observers.
That influence is believed to be behind some of the Taliban's more outrageous decisions, some of which have contradicted earlier edicts by Omar, their leader and top Islamic cleric.
The most obvious was the destruction in March of the world's tallest standing statues of Buddha. The destruction of the sandstone monuments, carved into a mountainside in the 3rd and 5th centuries, outraged the international community. But it also contradicted Omar's earlier promise to protect them.
In the Wahabi sect of Islam - practiced only in Saudi Arabia - statues are banned as idolatrous. That was the same reason the Taliban gave for dropping their promise to protect them.
In the last year, new and more stringent rules for international aid groups have been enforced. Three have been closed for allegedly preaching Christianity, and eight foreign employees, including two Americans, are being tried on charges of proselytizing. Dozens of other relief workers have been expelled.
Coinciding with this confrontation has been a proliferation of Muslim aid groups with links to hardline Islamists in neighboring Pakistan.
They have built dozens of new mosques, including a large one at Taliban headquarters in Kandahar, where they are also financing the reconstruction of a military hospital. They also have opened about 50 bakeries in Kabul to provide food aid.
If the Taliban surrendered bin Laden to the United States, the foreign militants and assistance from like-minded Islamists could evaporate, further isolating war-ruined Afghanistan.
But continuing to protect bin Laden could prompt a military attack by U.S.-led forces determined to punish the suspected terrorist mastermind for the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
For the Taliban, one complicating factor is that Afghan citizens and nationalists within the government resent the growing influence of foreign Arabs, such as bin Laden. They don't believe protecting the Saudi dissident is worth a punishing retaliatory assault.
``People are fed up with the `guests.' All our life has been burned by war and now we will get only more,'' said Mohammed Haroon, a shopkeeper in Kabul, a city that was devastated by factional fighting even before the Taliban took control in 1996.
Nationalists who want foreign guerrillas like bin Laden to go home are increasingly frustrated, but most remain too frightened to speak openly.
``The Islamic warriors are powerful, and if we say or do anything, we will be put in jail. These Arabs are not on the side of our nation. They are here for their own aim.'' said the Taliban official. ``I am afraid for our future.''
AP-NY-09-14-01 0448EDT
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.