THE Taliban's final edict on the fate of Osama bin Laden was a study in ambiguity. Some 1,000 of Afghanistan's most senior clerics, gathered in a conclave in the capital Kabul, ruled on September 20th that America's most wanted man should be asked to leave their country. In the same breath, they added that any American attack aimed at extracting him by force or punishing Afghanistan for harbouring him would result in a declaration of holy war. Although most observers are still trying to interpret this cryptic formula, the likely upshot is that Mr bin Laden will remain where he is, and America will pursue its plans for war.

The decree was the culimination of a week of dithering. The day before, Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban and self-styled \ufffdCommander of the Faithful\ufffd, sued for negotiations with America\ufffdonly to be swiftly rebuffed. He and others have suggested that they might hand Mr bin Laden over under various conditions: for a trial in a neutral third country, for example, or before Muslim judges. All the while, they have fulminated against what they perceive as an American quest to destroy Islam.

"To avoid the current tumult and also future similar suspicions," the 700 members of the high council of clerics said in the edict, or fatwa, they had recommended that Mr. bin Laden leave Afghanistan whenever possible.

Mr. bin Laden should find another place to live, said the shura, which met for two days before reaching its decision.

The council said Muslims should start a holy war if attacks were made against the Taliban's fighters, many of whom are only lightly armed.

"If in the time of an American attack, any Muslims, be they Afghans or non-Afghans, cooperate with the infidels, accomplices or spy, that person also is punishable to death like the foreign invaders," the edict said.

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Specialists on Afghanistan have said that his options in the wake of the clerics' recommendation that he leave the country include taking refuge with his own fighters at numerous camps around the cities of Kandahar and Jalalabad, or slipping across the border into remote regions of northwestern Pakistan.

The specialists say that Mr. bin Laden's Arab followers inside Afghanistan alone number at least 3,000, many of them trained fighters, and that they might resist the clerics' decision with force. The most feared of Mr. bin Laden's units, known as the 055 Brigade, has a reputation for brutality that have made them the most feared of all the units fighting under the Taliban banner inside Afghanistan.

If Mr. bin Laden and his top associates, several of whom are also on the F.B.I.'s wanted list, were to slip into Pakistan, tracking them down might be even more difficult than finding them in Afghanistan.

The terrain in parts of Pakistan's Baluchistan and North-West Frontier provinces includes some of the most inaccessible regions in central Asia, an area of deep valleys and high mountains, with deserts to the southwest. For centuries they have been the strongholds of tribal leaders who obey no law but their own. Many of these tribal leaders have links to the Taliban and to Mr. bin Laden.