Pakistan Is Out of Afghanistan

The Pakistani government confirmed Monday that it had recalled the last of its diplomatic officers from Afghanistan in a move that adds to the Taliban regime’s growing international isolation.

“In view of the abnormal situation and the security of our personnel, they were withdrawn over the weekend. They are all in Pakistan,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammed Khan, revealing that about 12 diplomats had been pulled out.

The diplomats had been told to leave last week and may have been gone as early as Friday, but Khan’s was the first public announcement and it came as a surprise to many Pakistanis. Khan reiterated, however, that Afghanistan’s embassy in Islamabad could continue to function.

The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, sounded aggrieved Monday that Pakistan and other Muslim nations have sided with the Bush administration in efforts to combat terrorism. The U.S. is demanding that Afghanistan hand over Osama bin Laden, a Saudi militant it considers the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The United Arab Emirates severed relations with the Taliban over the weekend. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are the only countries remaining with diplomatic ties to the Taliban.

At a news conference held on the lawn of one of the Taliban’s last functioning embassies, Zaeef urged Muslim countries to stop aiding the United States and instead use their influence to help prevent a war.

“Before extending cooperation and support to America, they should come forward and create an environment of understanding. . . . This issue can be solved, and it is up to the Muslim countries,” Zaeef declared, referring to the U.S. demand that Afghanistan unconditionally surrender Bin Laden and dismantle the Saudi militant’s terrorism network.

Zaeef said the Afghan people want peace and are “praying to Allah the almighty that this war would not happen between the two countries of Afghanistan and America.”

The ambassador welcomed a report Sunday that the Bush administration plans to make public evidence to support its contention that Bin Laden, who has been harbored by the Taliban since 1996, is the main suspect in the U.S. attacks that left more than 6,000 people dead or missing.

The Taliban leadership previously has maintained that it cannot turn over Bin Laden without proof of his guilt, and Zaeef said it was “very good news to provide evidence. . . . We have always condemned terrorism, and we never defend terrorism.”

Despite the Taliban ambassador’s calls for Muslim states to avoid giving help to the U.S., Pakistan is going in that direction. Officials confirmed that the country as of Monday was hosting a small, secrecy-shrouded U.S. military delegation, apparently on a mission to inspect Pakistani installations that might be needed for an attack on Afghanistan.

At a news conference, U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin declined to provide details of the mission. Khan, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, described the visit as simply “information sharing.”

In a gesture of American support, the two nations signed an agreement giving Pakistan a generous rescheduling of its $379-million debt to the U.S. government. Although the accord was reached in principle in January, a formal signing ceremony Monday underscored that the Bush administration is interested in rewarding Pakistan for its help in opposing Bin Laden and the Taliban.

“Concluding this agreement at this critical time is a public endorsement of the Pakistani government’s management of its economic recovery,” Chamberlin said. “In the coming weeks, the United States will be looking at other ways in which it might support Pakistan’s economic development and reform program.”

On Saturday, the U.S. lifted sanctions imposed on Pakistan and neighboring India when the two nations conducted nuclear tests in 1998.

Chamberlin hinted that a set of sanctions imposed when Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf overthrew the elected government two years ago also might be lifted soon.

A statement issued Monday from inside Afghanistan by the Taliban’s supreme spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, warned that the U.S. efforts to defeat the Taliban are doomed to fail. Omar said U.S. forces would “burn themselves” if they tried to replace the Taliban regime with a pro-American government.

Another statement, this one given to Qatar’s independent Al Jazeera satellite TV network and attributed to Bin Laden, called on Pakistani Muslims to stand by the Taliban and resist what the statement called “the American crusade forces and their allies on the lands of Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”