missiles. The strikes killed a number of militants – Afghans, Arabs,
Pakistanis, and Kashmiris – but Bin Laden escaped unscathed.
Indeed, Bergen concludes that they turned Bin Laden ‘from a mar-
ginal figure in the Muslim world into a global celebrity’ (Bergen,
2001a; 125).
A certain amount of public debate then took place in
Washington over how further to address what was obviously
becoming a major problem. While Taliban apologists such as Laili
Helms continued to argue for engagement (United States Institute
of Peace, 1998: 4–5: Roddy, 2002), a major study for the
Afghanistan Foundation recommended ‘a much tougher policy
toward the Taliban’ (Khalilzad, Byman, Krakowski, and Ritter,
1999: 17–18). It was the latter approach which the Administration
adopted, and the result was a hail of sanctions against the Taliban.
On 7 July 1999, the Clinton Administration imposed a range of
unilateralsanctions on the Taliban, freezing all Taliban assets in
the USA and banning commercial and financial ties between the
Taliban and the USA (Federal Register, 64, 29, 7 July 1999).
These were augmented by mandatory ‘Chapter VII’ sanctions
imposed by the UN Security Council, binding on all UN member
states pursuant to Article 25 of the UN Charter. In Resolution 1267
of 15 October 1999, the Security Council demanded that the
Taliban turn over Bin Laden ‘to appropriate authorities in a coun-
try where he has been indicted, or to appropriate authorities in a
country where he will be returned to such a country, or to appro-
priate authorities in a country where he will be arrested and effect-
ively brought to justice’. Failing such a handover, the resolution
required states to deny permission for any aircraft ‘to take off from
or land in their territory if it is owned, leased or operated by or on
behalf of the Taliban’, except on the grounds of ‘humanitarian
need’, and then only if approved in advance by a special
Committee of the Security Council. It also contained a wide-
ranging requirement for states to freeze ‘funds and other financial
resources’ belonging to the Taliban or available for their use.
The Taliban categorically refused to comply with the demands
of the resolution, and this led directly to further measures in
The Rise and Rule of the Taliban, 1994-2001 249