Taliban clerics ask Osama to leave Afghanistan
Kabul: Afghanistan's senior Islamic clerics issued an edict asking Osama bin Laden to leave the country.

"To avoid the current tumult, the high council of the honorable ulema (clerics) recommends to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to persuade Osama bin Laden to leave Afghanistan whenever possible," said the edict issued after a two-day meeting of clerics.

Bin Laden should find another place to live, said the verdict issued on behalf the council, or shura, by the Taliban's information ministry. However, it stopped short of ordering the expulsion of the 44-year-old multimillionaire wanted by President Bush 'dead of alive'.

It was unclear whether bin Laden would leave, and if so where he would go, or even whether the edict would be enough to prevent the US from following through with its threats to punish all perpetrators and their protectors of the devastating suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last week.

The edict said Muslims should launch a jihad, if the world's most modern military waged a war against the Taliban's fighters, many armed with little more than Kalashnikov rifles.
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