July 6, 1999
Web posted at: 6:23 p.m. EDT (2223 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Accusing it of harboring alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden, U.S. President Bill Clinton has slapped economic sanctions on the Taliban movement which rules most of Afghanistan, the White House said Tuesday.

Clinton signed an executive order Monday freezing the assets of the Taliban in the United States and prohibiting trade and other transactions between U.S. citizens and the strict Islamic militia

The order is meant to "deepen the international isolation of the Taliban, limit its ability to support terrorist networks and demonstrate the need to conform to the accepted norms of international behavior," Clinton said in a statement.

The Clinton administration has blamed the Taliban for allowing bin Laden to use its territory as a "safe haven."

"To this day, bin Laden and his network continue to plan new attacks against Americans without regard for the innocence of their intended victims or for those non-Americans who might get in the way of his attack," Clinton said.

Bin Laden, who was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List last month, has been indicted by a U.S. federal court of masterminding the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. Those attacks killed more than 200 people and injured more than 5,000.

The Taliban says bin Laden "disappeared" in February and that it does not know his whereabouts. The United States believes bin Laden is still hiding in Afghanistan and is poised to strike again.

"Over the past few months, we received intelligence reflecting a pattern of activity that indicates planning for terrorist attacks against American interests by bin Laden and his associates. This terrorist threat is continuing, as shown by measures we had to take last week to close temporarily half a dozen U.S. embassies in Africa," State Department deputy spokesman James Foley said.

The six embassies were shut down for a few days in June after they came under suspicious surveillance. The U.S. mission in the Madagascan capital Antananarivo remained closed on Tuesday.

In practical terms, the impact of the sanctions probably will be modest, a senior administration official acknowledged. But Foley said the trade restrictions would not be insignificant.

Trade between the United States and the Taliban totaled $24 million in 1998, much of it exports of Afghan gems and carpets to the United States.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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