``The award is an inducement to terrorism,'' Taliban spokesman Mullah Wakil Ahmed was quoted as saying by the Afghan Islamic Press.

The Taliban official was reacting to the US state department announcement offering a five million dollar reward for bin Laden's capture.

He added the US had failed to give any evidence to the Afghan government to support its allegations against bin Laden, a guest of the Islamic Talibans who control most of Afghanistan.

The US has accused bin Laden of causing bomb blasts outside its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7 this year, in which over 200 people, including some Americans, were killed.

The US also launched missile strikes at suspectedhideouts of bin Laden in Sudan and Afghanistan later but the accused escaped unscathed.

The Talibans, in the wake of allegations against bin Laden, set up judicial inquiry against the Saudi dissident and asked the US and other countries to send evidence against him, promising to prosecute bin Laden, if found guilty.

An accused in the 1996 bombing of US military barracks in Saudi Arabia which claimed 26 US army personnel, Osama bin Laden fled the country and after a brief stay in Sudan, established his base in Afghanistan during the previous Burhanudin Rabbani regime.

Talibans, after capturing Kabul in September 1996, accepted him as their guest and have recently rejected US demand for his extradition.

Meanwhile, a Pakistani Muslim group, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), has expressed support to bin Laden terming him as a ``hero of Islam'' and warned the US against chasing him.

``The US should stop chasing a hero of Islam,'' Tariq Madni, top SSP leader said yesterday, and warned that ``pro-Islamicforces would retaliate and teach a lesson to the United States if it did not stop its campaign against Osama.''

Stating that ``Muslims can never forget Osama's services to Islam'', he said ``Osama is not only the guest of Talibans but of the whole Muslim nation.'' bin Laden acquired immense popularity in Pakistan after the August 7 bombings in Africa with most of the Muslim groups projecting him as their "hero".

Incidentally, the US missile strikes also killed a number of Pakistanis who were getting training at the camps apparently for fighting in Kashmir.