U.S. Seeks Sanctions to Force Taliban to Expel Bin Laden

The United States asked the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to impose strict sanctions on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers until they turn over Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden, charged with plotting the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people last year.

The draft resolution that the council will consider calls for freezing bank accounts, other funds and property controlled by the Muslim fundamentalist army and for an international ban on flights by Taliban aircraft.

In a letter to the other 14 members of the Security Council, U.S. representative Peter Burleigh said the Clinton administration has privately asked the Taliban 20 times to expel Bin Laden and has been rejected.

“Now we feel the time has come for the international community to be tough with this individual,” said a U.S. diplomat.

Russian Ambassador Sergei V. Lavrov, the Security Council’s president for October, said his nation supports the effort to oust Bin Laden from Afghanistan.

“The Taliban are violating all possible resolutions of the United Nations,” Lavrov charged.

A federal grand jury in Manhattan indicted Bin Laden and his top military commander, Mohammed Atef, in November 1998 for the twin attacks in August of that year. U.S. government officials have offered a $5-million reward for information leading to the pair’s capture.

The grand jury also charged Bin Laden in the October 1993 attack in Mogadishu, Somalia, that killed 18 U.S. soldiers and with a wide range of terrorist activities--including efforts to obtain nuclear and chemical weapons.

The proposed U.N. resolution calls on the Taliban to stop providing training camps for terrorists and to turn over Bin Laden “without further delay” to authorities in a country that is prepared to take effective steps so that he can be “expeditiously brought to justice.”

It calls on the 188 members of the United Nations to deny permission for Taliban-owned or -leased aircraft to land unless a flight has been approved in advance on the grounds of significant humanitarian need.

In asking countries to freeze Taliban assets, the resolution also provides a humanitarian exemption.

Washington announced in August that it had frozen the assets of Afghanistan’s national Ariana airline as part of a package of sanctions.

In a carefully constructed paragraph designed to allay Chinese fears of interference in a nation’s internal affairs, the resolution also reaffirms the Security Council’s “strong commitment” to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national unity of Afghanistan.

Seeking to solidify support in the council for sanctions, U.S. diplomats circulated a summary of the indictment against Bin Laden and his co-conspirators as an official U.N. document.

The draft resolution also asks the council to form a special committee to monitor the sanctions against the Taliban, which controls about 90% of Afghanistan.