-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Emirates Cut Relations With Taliban By TAREK AL-ISSAWI, Associated Press Writer DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - In a move that strengthens the United States' position in its hunt for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), the United Arab Emirates cut relations Saturday with Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s Taliban government. A Saudi official said his kingdom was considering doing the same. The Emirates' decision came after the Persian Gulf state proved unable to persuade the Taliban to hand over bin Laden, the United States' prime suspect in Sept. 11's terror attacks, said the official Emirates News Agency. The Emirates' move - and Saudi Arabia's if it follows suit - leaves the Taliban ever more isolated in their showdown with the United States over surrendering bin Laden, a Saudi exile believed to operate from bases in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Emirates are the only nations to have recognized the Taliban, a hard-line Islamic militia that seized power in 1996. Islamabad has scaled back ties and pledged cooperation with the United States in action against Afghanistan. In Saudi Arabia, an official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the kingdom also was ``discussing whether to sever ties with the Taliban.'' The official did not say when such a decision would be made. In 1998, Saudi Arabia announced without explanation that it was expelling the Afghan charge d'affaires in Riyadh and recalling its representative from Kabul. The Saudis never clarified whether that constituted a severing of ties or a downgrading. The Afghan charge d'affaires in Riyadh said at the time that the Saudi move came because his country was harboring bin Laden. Pakistan brought back its ambassador to Kabul two months ago and recalled most of the rest of its diplomatic staff and their families after the Sept. 11 attacks, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Riaz Khan said in Islamabad. Khan said Pakistan's embassy and consulate in Kabul now were operating with only a skeleton staff. A Taliban security guard at the Pakistan Embassy, however, said Saturday that the last Pakistani officials had packed up their computers, papers and other luggage the night before, and left in a convoy of vehicles for their home country across the border. ``Now the embassy is closed, and no Pakistani official is in Kabul,'' guard Akhter Mohammed said. In Islamabad, Khan said the Afghan Embassy in Pakistan has ``served as a window'' for the world with the Taliban. There, Taliban representatives can learn what the rest of the world asks and expects of them, Khan said. The Taliban have seldom appeared to take note when the outside world objects to their decisions, which are governed by an extremely strict interpretation of Islam. The leadership ignored an international outcry, for example, ahead of its March destruction of 1,500 statues of Buddha, which it said were forbidden idols. The cutting of ties over bin Laden increases pressure on the Taliban government, which the United States has repeatedly condemned as an alleged supporter of terrorism. The Taliban militia ``has become a liability on all the countries that recognized it. I expect the Saudis, and even Pakistan, to take similar steps,'' Abdul Khaleq Abdulla, a political analyst on Gulf affairs in the United Arab Emirates, said. Abdulla said Saudi Arabia must consider its interests as it decides where it stands with the Taliban, and ``those interests lie in stepping away from the Taliban, whose actions have become unacceptable.'' The Emirates has strongly condemned the attacks in the United States and said it would support the fight against terrorism. Saturday's decision to cut relations takes immediate effect, and embassy staff were ordered to leave the country within 24 hours, the Emirates News Agency quoted an unidentified official as saying. The Afghan embassy in Abu Dhabi was considered closed, said the agency. Neither Emirates' officials nor Taliban diplomats in the Emirates could be reached for comment. Most countries recognize the government-in-exile of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, whose forces control only 5 percent of Afghanistan. In 1999, the Emirates downgraded its relations with the Taliban, after the Security Council imposed sanctions on Afghanistan for its refusal to hand over bin Laden, who was also blamed for deadly bombings on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. 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