Taliban rejects Bush's 'second chance' offer

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban has rejected President George W. Bush's "second chance" offer to surrender terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden, the Afghan embassy in Islamabad said today.

President Bush told a news conference on Thursday that if the Taliban "cough him up and his people today" then the United States will "reconsider what we're doing to your country. You still have a second chance," Bush said. "Just bring him in, and bring his leaders and lieutenants and other thugs and criminals with him."

But an official of the Afghan Embassy said: "We have rejected the Bush offer." The official said Taliban authorities in Kandahar, Afghanistan, had informed their ambassador in Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, that the Bush offer would not be accepted.