Free Republic

BBC - The only major Taleban figure to have been arrested by the Americans and then released, the former foreign minister, Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, has given his first interview to a western news organisation since his release. Mr Mutawakil has emerged from three years in American detention and then house arrest in Kabul as a key figure in the moves by the government to forge peace with the Taleban. Speaking in Kabul, Mr Mutawakil said he was unapologetic about many aspects of Taleban rule, although he did admit that their foreign guests, Osama Bin Laden and his men, had brought...

Taliban told US it would give up Osama - middleman By Mark Trevelyan BERLIN, June 4 (Reuters) - U.S. and Taliban officials met secretly in Frankfurt almost a year before the September 11 attacks to discuss terms for the Afghans to hand over Osama bin Laden, according to a German television documentary. But no agreement was reached and no further negotiations took place before the suicide hijackings in 2001, which bin Laden subsequently hailed in a videotape as the work of his al Qaeda network. ZDF television quoted Kabir Mohabbat, an Afghan-American businessman, as saying he tried to broker a...