But Rabbani refrained from endorsing exiled king Mohammad Zaher Shah as a unifying force. Shah and the anti-Taliban northern alliance last week announced an agreement to convene a meeting of tribal leaders to select a new head of state. Powerful Pashtun tribes see the former monarch as a figure who could unite the nation, but Rabbani skirted the question.

"Mr. Zaher Shah is a citizen of Afghanistan and has the right, like all the citizens of Afghanistan, to participate in the history and fate of Afghanistan," he told reporters after meeting with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov.

"Of course, we welcome the participation of any citizen in the history and fate of Afghanistan, but now the question of the leadership of Afghanistan (can be determined) only after the destruction of the Taliban."

The loose coalition known as the northern alliance, which controls about 10 percent of Afghan territory, is made up largely of members of Afghanistan's ethnic minorities, including Tajiks and Uzbeks.

While many tribal chiefs dislike the hard-line Islamic Taliban, they regard the northern alliance as little more than agents of foreign powers including Russia, which has provided it with weapons and other support.

Many northern leaders have been discredited because of the anarchy that swept Afghanistan when they were in power, including the destruction of much of the capital, Kabul, and the killing of an estimated 50,000 people, mostly civilians.

Rabbani, a 61-year-old Islamic scholar and poet, was driven from Kabul in 1996 by the Taliban, and he has largely lived in exile since. The United States and other Western powers still recognize Rabbani as Afghanistan's legitimate leader, and his deposed government holds Afghanistan's U.N. seat and almost all its embassies.

Rabbani said Wednesday that representatives of all Afghanistan's tribes should help decide the nation's fate, "everybody except terrorists and those who are up to their elbows in blood."

He said he and Rakhmonov had discussed a wide array of issues surrounding the Afghan crisis, including the provision of humanitarian aid.

Successive wars and drought in the nation have spawned a huge refugee crisis that has spilled over into neighboring countries including Tajikistan. In addition to previous waves of Afghan refugees, an estimated 150,000 are clustered in Afghanistan near the border with Tajikistan. Rakhmonov has vowed that none will be allowed to enter his impoverished, already overburdened country.

The northern alliance is hoping the U.S.-British airstrikes on Afghanistan that began this week will help it dislodge the Taliban.

"We supported and we support the elimination of terrorism throughout the world," Rabbani said.

He said that he and Rakhmonov had issued constant warnings about the "terrible danger" posed by the Taliban.

"The terrible and sad thing that happened in the United States couldn't have taken place had the world community paid attention to our warnings in time," he said, referring to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.