We won't expel Osama: Taliban

ISLAMABAD, JAN. 24. Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Government today said it would not bow to mounting U.S.-led international pressure to expel the Saudi-born terrorism suspect, Osama bin Laden. ``We will never ask him to go,'' the Taliban Foreign Minister, Mr. Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, told a news conference after a two-day visit to Pakistan, which followed renewed U.S. pressure on Islamabad to persuade the Taliban to hand over Osama for trial.

Mr. Mutawakil said that while the Taliban Government, which is also under U.S.-sponsored U.N. aviation and financial sanctions over the affair, would not expel Osama, it could provide ``technical assistance'' if the dissident himself wanted to leave. He said Pakistan had no influence in the matter.

- Reuters

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