Afghans flee Kabul as Taliban warns Pakistan over US support

Afghans streamed out of the capital, Kabul, today, fearing a US military strike against their Taliban rulers who harbour Osama bin Laden.

Afghans streamed out of the capital, Kabul, today, fearing a US military strike against their Taliban rulers who harbour Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban urged residents to "stand proud" ? and threatened to wage war on countries that help the United States in an attack.

Taliban ruler Mullah Mohammed Omar urged Afghans to remain steadfast ? telling them in a radio address to "stand proud as Afghans in the defence of Islam."

"There is no pleasure in life anyway, so I don't care if the bombs come and I have to die along with my children," said Leilama, a 38-year-old mother of six in Kabul. "But the United States should know that the Afghan people are not their enemies."

Residents of Kabul were spending their meagre savings to stock up on food and other supplies. Thousands of Afghans lined up Saturday outside a barbed wire fence on the Afghan-Pakistan border at Torkham, where Taliban fighters beat people back with sticks.

"I don't want my children to die in a war," said Sabira, who like many Afghans uses only one name. She waited at the fence with her two boys and two girls, aged 4 to 9.

A 9-year-old boy named Abdul escaped into Pakistan, but his mother, father and siblings were still stuck on the Afghan side. "I won't go back," he said. "I'll just wait and hope they will come, too."

Fear of an impending US military attack is rife throughout Afghanistan. Responsibility for last Tuesday's terror attacks has not been established, but the United States has pointed to bin Laden as the prime suspect.

That makes Afghanistan a likely target of a US. assault. The radical Taliban militia that rules 95 per cent of Afghanistan has provided a safe haven to bin Laden since 1996.

The Taliban have said they have no intention of handing over bin Laden to the United States unless Washington provides convincing evidence against him.

"I am not afraid of death or of losing power. I am willing to give up power and my seat, but I'm not willing to give up Islam," Omar said in his radio address Friday. "We shall be victorious."

In Islamabad, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan said that his militia would wage war on any country that allowed either its air or ground to be used for U.S. attacks on Afghanistan.

"If any regional or neighboring country helps the United States attack us it would spark extraordinary dangers ... It would draw us into a reprisal war," Abdul Salam Zaeef said.

The comments came as Pakistani sources confirmed that Pakistan had agreed to a full list of US demands in the event of an assault on the Taliban.

Speaking to reporters, Zaeef did not name Pakistan specifically as a target. But he said that war would be declared on any country that allowed either its air or ground to be used for attacks, and Pakistan has reportedly agreed to allow both.

Zaeef reiterated earlier Taliban statements that bin Laden could not have carried out Tuesday's attacks.

Afghans have grown accustomed to hardship, having lived through Soviet invasion, civil war, the rise of the radical Taliban movement and, in recent months, a punishing drought.