American diplomats were in talks with the Taliban to have Osama bin Laden handed over just days before the September 11 attacks.
The negotiations came at the end of a fruitless three-year effort to have the terror mastermind brought to the United States to face trial.
But the talks foundered despite efforts on both sides to keep them going, and diplomats finally broke off contacts after the September 11 atrocities.
Mr Michael Malinowski, a State Department official who helped lead the talks, told the Washington Post: "I would say 'Hey, give up bin Laden', and they would say 'No. Show us the evidence'."
The Taliban's refusal to hand over bin Laden centred on the fact he was their "guest" and in the tradition of Afghanistan, could not be expelled from their "home".
Mr Malinowski said he would tell Taliban leaders: "It is not all right if this visitor goes up to the roof of your house and shoots his gun at his neighbours."
And the diplomat revealed he once spoke to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the supreme spiritual leader of the Taliban, while sitting outside his suburban home in Washington.
The exchange was one of a series of bizarre incidents during the three-year diplomatic effort, which saw a 24-year-old Taliban member come to Washington in March for talks, with a note for President George Bush from Mullah Omar and the gift of a carpet.
The diplomatic effort to capture bin Laden started in 1996, when he was based in Sudan and had declared jihad, or holy war, on America.
American diplomats attempted to persuade the Sudanese to extradite bin Laden to Saudi Arabia, where he could be turned over to the Americans, but the Saudis decided not to co-operate and bin Laden was then expelled from Sudan and went to Afghanistan.
And in the aftermath of the 1998 al Qaida bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, then US President Bill Clinton told diplomats to put pressure on the Taliban to hand over bin Laden.
America told the Taliban it wanted bin Laden to stand trial in the United States, and refused to negotiate on the demand.
PA