“In mid-April 1998 Bill Richardson, the US Ambassador to the United Nations…travelled to Pakistan and then on to Afghanistan for talks with senior officials from the Taliban on how bin Laden could be handed over to the US. As Richardson met the Taliban several teams of US Special Forces soldiers arrived in Pakistan and were ‘smuggled’ into the heavily defended US consulate in Peshawar in preparation for a cross-border raid. Richardson promised the Taliban their international isolation would end if they turned bin Laden over, but the mullahs would not co-operate. Bin Laden, they said, would remain their ‘protected guest.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, Page 195