ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 4 — Pakistan said today that it believes there is sufficient evidence to indict Osama bin Laden in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, bringing the country squarely into the American camp.

The statement, from the foreign ministry, was the first of its kind from a Muslim nation, and it may have stopped the shivering on the brink that had marked Pakistan's position in the crisis.

It could also be a steadying force throughout the Islamic world, which has hesitated in joining Washington's condemnation of Mr. bin Laden, citing a lack of evidence that he was directly tied to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has the military behind him and its endorsement for him to continue in office seems certain in the next 10 days or so. He was scheduled to face its decision on Oct. 20.

General Musharraf was briefed by the United States ambassador Wendy Chamberlain into the investigation of the attacks.

"This material certainly provides a sufficient basis for an indictment in a court of law," the foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammed Riaz Khan, said today.

But he refused to comment on whether the evidence was sufficient to justify a military strike on Afghanistan, where Mr. bin Laden is believed to be in hiding, or on Mr. bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network.

The Pakistan government has apparently not been impressed with demonstrations in support of Afghanistan's Taliban rulers that have been held here and in other cities, which has almost certainly strengthened General Musharraf's resolve to take a firm position.

The protests against any proposed American action in Afghanistan and the support shown by Pakistan have nowhere approached the size of protests in the past over other issues, in which a half-million people at a time have turned out.

On Friday General Musharraf, who feels that his position has steadied, will meet with Prime Minister Blair of Britain, who is viewed here as a very important figure in the crisis.

The Pakistan government was very impressed with Mr. Blair's speech on Tuesday, in which he bluntly warned the Taliban that it was a case of handing over Mr. bin Laden or face military action.

In another development, officials of the Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan's military intelligence agency have been meeting on putting together a new coalition government in Afghanistan.

The talks have involved three senior figures from the mujahadeen who fought the Russians from 1979, when they invaded Afghanistan, to 1989, when they pulled out after suffering thousands of casualties. The senior figures are now said to be back in touch with the Taliban.

According to analysts this and other moves are part of the Great Game of trying to pull the Taliban apart and split its support.

Evidence that the tactics might be working is seen on the one hand by the firm response to the crisis by the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and a less than forceful position taken by the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef.

Mullah Omar has issued defiant refusals to hand over Mr. bin Laden and warned that if the United States forces invaded his country they would meet the same fate as that handed out to the Russians.

But in a remorseful CNN interview on Tuesday, Mullah Zaeef gave what sounded like a last, desperate plea for America not to attack.

"This event," he said, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks, "was very, very bad and disastrous to the American people, and we condemned that before," adding, that "handover is the other option."

Meanwhile, the Taliban's top Islamic clerics have left their headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar to escape the risk of American bombing, and other senior Taliban officials have fled to Pakistan or sent their families across the border as refugees, according to reliable accounts reaching Pakistan.

Other accounts depict gathering panic among the population and the disappearance from major cities of many Taliban soldiers and policemen, and raise the possibility of a mass defection by Taliban fighters.

The accumulating signs could indicate the beginning of a wider disintegration of Taliban power. But because the reports are scattered, and in some cases from refugees arriving in Pakistan who are hostile to the Taliban, it is uncertain whether the Taliban are starting to break up as a governing force or are regrouping for a guerrilla war.

A top official of the anti-Taliban alliance based in northern Afghanistan said Wednesday that dozens of senior Taliban officers commanding as many as 10,000 troops might be willing to switch loyalties, some of them based in key provinces.

"They are willing to change sides today or wait until something starts and then coordinate their efforts with us," said the official, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, who is nominally the foreign minister of the Northern Alliance. "It's quite possible there will be a popular uprising in Kabul before we can move forces into Kabul."

He also claimed to have received pledges of continuing support from Iran and Russia, and to have held his first meeting with American officials. "We are discussing every aspect of the present situation and cooperation," he said, without disclosing the meeting's location.

The alliance, which has fought a long and losing war against the Taliban, has a reputation for exaggerating its claims. There was no way to tell whether Dr. Adbullah was overstating the extent to which Taliban fighters could be tempted into a mass defection — a development that would dramatically alter the strategic landscape in the country. Other alliance commanders suggested Dr. Abdullah was making exaggerated claims.

But the statements together with the flurry of reports that have leaked out of the isolated country in the past 48 hours — from Afghan cities hundreds of miles apart, as well as from provincial towns that have been fortresses of Taliban power — suggest that tensions building since the Sept. 11 t attacks are reaching a breaking point.