KABUL - Warning of a possible U.S. invasion, Taliban leaders on Tuesday urged Afghans to prepare for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States.

Throughout Afghanistan, Taliban leaders are sending a message to their people: ``Stay united and prepare for jihad against U.S. invaders,'' the Taliban's Bakhtar News Agency reported.

Taliban leaders said Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who has taken refuge in Afghanistan, has been wrongly implicated in the deadly terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Bin Laden, who also is wanted by the United States in connection with the 1998 twin bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa, is the prime suspect in last week's airborne assaults on New York's Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington.

``The accusations against Osama bin Laden are baseless and a pretext to attack Afghanistan,'' said the state-run news agency.

A grand Islamic council in Afghanistan was meeting Tuesday to decide bin Laden's fate.

That announcement by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar came after a Pakistani delegation met with him and delivered a blunt message to Afghanistan's radical Taliban rulers: Hand over bin Laden or be hit by a punishing retaliatory strike from a U.S.-led international coalition.

The United States fired cruise missiles into eastern Afghanistan following the 1998 bombings.

The Taliban's refusal to surrender bin Laden after the embassy bombings provoked two rounds of U.N. sanctions that have cut off funds to its national airline and isolated its leaders.