LATE ONE NIGHT in August 1998, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi was alerted by a knock on his door. The messenger said he was to come immediately to a meeting of Afghanistan's ruling Taleban officials. The country had been attacked.
'I later found out that 75 cruise missiles has been fired against Afghanistan,' Mr Hashemi said. 'The US . . . said that they wanted to kill a man called bin Laden.'
Mr Hashemi is the Taleban's foreign-affairs spokesman and is well acquainted with the 'man called bin Laden'.
Tagged as the Islamic regime's roving ambassador, Mr Hashemi, a multi-lingual man in his 20s, has the daunting task of trying to explain the nature and practices of a government that many people find abhorrent.
Three years ago, then president Bill Clinton ordered the cruise-missile attack on Afghanistan, claiming the Saudi-born bin Laden was behind the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In the wake of the September 11 strikes on New York and Washington, the US has again pointed the finger of blame at bin Laden, who is living under Taleban protection.
Before the destruction of the World Trade Centre, Mr Hashemi, who has been described as 'serious and articulate', travelled frequently to the US and many other Western countries. His most-recent trip to Washington in March included a working-level meeting at the State Department where he handed over a message for President George W. Bush.