As more than 1,000 clerics from all over Afghanistan began considering bin Laden's fate, a defiant message from the militia's supreme leader dampened hopes they would agree to extradite the man suspected of orchestrating last week's attacks on New York and Washington. Mullah Mohammad Omar said bin Laden would not be extradited without clear evidence and dismissed US allegations against the Saudi-born militant as a pretext to wage war on Islam.

"Islam is a true way of life and our enemies and those against our religion believe that we are their enemies," Omar told the clerics, whose meeting was set to continue into Thursday. "They are trying to finish us on various pretexts. One of their pretexts is Osama bin Laden's presence in Afghanistan." As tens of thousands of Afghans continued to flee their homes in fear of a US attack, refugees arriving in neighbouring Pakistan provided further evidence that the Taliban is already bracing for war.

"The Taliban are very nervous and expect something to happen. I've seen a lot of soldiers moving around along the Kabul road," one refugee from Kabul told AFP as he arrived in the northwestern Pakistani frontier city of Peshawar. "But they don't look frightened, in fact a lot of them seem to be quite excited by the whole thing. They're just ready for a big war." Major troop movements were reported to be especially intense around the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, where bin Laden is widely believed to have a base.

Islamic groups in neighbouring Pakistan stepped up their opposition to Islamabad's pledge of cooperation and the United States and Western embassies began pulling out the families of their diplomats and non-essential staff. There has been no violence on Pakistan's streets yet but radical Islamic groups have vowed to wage a nationwide campaign against the government's stance.

The country's most important Islamic council Wednesday issued a fatwa calling for a holy war against the United States and its allies if they attack Afghanistan. "The Pakistan Ulema Council has called for a jihad against America and its allies if they attack Afghanistan. The attack will be an act of terrorism," the council said.

"It is the duty of all the Muslims in the world to protect Muslim countries and Muslims, and the people of Pakistan and the ulema will not let America destroy the interests and identity of Pakistan and Afghanistan." Council vice chairman Maulana Naseeruddin said rallies and "Death to America" conferences would be held around the country on Friday.

Omar's statement to the meeting in Kabul reiterated the Taliban position that bin Laden could not have carried out last week's attacks because of restrictions placed on his movement by the regime. He repeated the Taliban's offer to try bin Laden in the Afghan Supreme Court or allow his activities to be monitored by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), both options already rejected by the United States.

Bin Laden has been sheltered by the Taliban since 1996. He is regarded as an honoured guest, has close links to Omar and other leaders and is a veteran of the country's resistance to the 1979-89 Soviet occupation. "We have not tried to create problems with America," Omar said. "We have held negotiations with former American governments and we are ready to hold negotiations even now."

The Taliban chief and supreme spiritual leader called the meeting of hundreds of scholars after talks Monday with top military officials from Pakistan. The Pakistanis warned him of devastating consequences for the Taliban and for Afghanistan if bin Laden is not handed over quickly and without conditions.

Omar will have the final say over bin Laden's fate, but the ulema are expected to issue fatwas, or learned opinions, on the legality of his extradition under Islamic law and whether Muslims should fight a jihad, or holy war, in the event of US strikes. "We have said that if there is evidence establishing Osama's guilt this evidence should be handed over to the Afghan Supreme Court, or let ulema from three Islamic countries or the OIC keep an eye on Osama, but America has rejected all our suggestions," he said.

Without mentioning jihad, he urged the ulema to issue a fatwa "if America insists on attacking Afghanistan and killing our innocent and oppressed people." As Washington continued to assemble an international coalition expected to strike Afghanistan, three US aircraft carriers were Wednesday heading for undisclosed destinations.

The Islamabad embassies of the United States, the 15-nation European Union, Australia and Canada all indicated that non-essential staff and diplomats' families are leaving the country because of concern about possible unrest. But diplomats stressed there was no emergency evacuation under way.

"The embassies are thinning their staff out now when it is not too bad so that it is easier if we have to evacuate later," one western diplomat told AFP. - AFP

Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, echoing the view of New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani late on Tuesday, said it was becoming more and more unlikely survivors would be found. There were about 5,400 people still missing after the New York attack, he said.

"We are doing the best we can. We have had thousands of people down there working for the last seven nights and days. With each hour and minute our hopes are diminished (of finding anyone alive," Kerik told ABC's "Good Morning America" program.

Kerik said rescuers had found some "voids and deep pockets" under the collapsed buildings, but "so far, no good." "The heat at the lower levels is very extreme and it's really taken a toll on firemen finding survivors down there," he said, adding that with such extreme heat the chance was "very slim" of finding survivors.

"When we reconcile all the lists of information from the different areas where we collect the missing persons reports, the number seems to be about 5,400," said Kerik, adding he did not expect the figure to increase. Nearly 6,000 people were also injured in the attacks on the World Trade Center, Kerik said.

In the worst terror attack on U.S. soil, pilots rammed planes they had hijacked into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania. Nearly 6,000 people are missing or dead from the coordinated strikes. Kerik said the attacks showed America had to adopt the same security precautions used in many countries abroad by improving security at airports and examining immigration policies.

"They live in this world of terrorism constantly and I think that is something we have to look at and start changing our mind-set in how we address security issues," he said. - Reuters

US ambassador Wendy Chamberlin said non-essential staff at the US embassy had been told they could leave if they wanted to earlier this week but no evacuation order had been issued. "We are quite satisfied with the security we are getting from Pakistan," she told reporters. The British High Commission in Islamabad issued a statement advising nationals that "in light of the security situation" they should consider whether to leave the country.

It said anybody in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Baluchistan and northern parts of the country -- all areas close to Afghanistan -- would be "strongly advised" to leave immediately. "British nationals will also want to be aware that the dependents of staff at our offices here and a few non-essential personnel who wish to leave will be leaving Pakistan," a spokesman said.

Other European Union countries, Australia and Canada have adopted a similar approach. Australia said that all its nationals in Pakistan should consider leaving. Previously it had advised only Australians in NWFP and Baluchistan to leave those areas.

"For embassy staff that means that some non-essential staff and dependents are leaving," a spokesman said. Diplomats stressed however that the departures were precautionary rather than a sign of sign of panic. The British High Commission has chartered a special flight to take some staff out of Pakistan but it is not due to leave until Friday, a diplomatic source told AFP.

"The embassies are thinning their staff out now when it is not too bad so that it is easier if we have to evacuate later," another Western diplomat said. A European diplomat said there was however growing unease within the diplomatic community about the prospects of demonstrations against Pakistan's support for possible US action turning violent.

"There is a feeling lots of people want to leave, especially those who have children. In most cases, wives who do not have children are staying." The British school in Islamabad has already closed but the French and American schools were still open Wednesday. Japan said it had advised its nationals to leave Pakistan and said 353 of 465 Japanese there had already left. South Korea said 108 of its 419 citizens in Pakistan had already left and the embassy was mapping out an emergency evacuation plan in case of a serious deterioration in the situation.

Thailand however said it was not moving its nationals out of Islamabad but said it had advised against non-essential travel there. Malaysia said it was monitoring the situation but had not issued any instructions yet. The acceleration of departures from Pakistan came a day after 5,000 people staged an anti-American demonstration in Karachi. It was the biggest since the start of the current crisis and police had to be deployed to stop the protestors marching on the US consulate in the city.

The demonstrations so far have been peaceful but sources in the intelligence community believe it is inevitable that hardline religious groups will resort to violence in their campaign against Pakistan's support for the United States.

A coalition of more than 30 Islamist parties has called for a nationwide wave of strikes and protests starting after prayers on Friday, the Muslim holy day. A council of senior religious leaders called Wednesday for a jihad, or holy war, if the US attacks Afghanistan. - AFP

Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo said computerised records in her office showed the four were Saudi nationals who were admitted into the Philippines "as tourists...for a period of 21 days without visa."

"The bureau (of immigration) is now trying to retrieve the arrival and departure cards that (they) presented to (immigration officials) so that authorities can trace their movements while they were in the Philippines," Domingo said in a news release. She said the cards would also help investigators "determine the identities of other possible foreign terrorists and their local cohorts whom the hijackers had met or contacted when they came to Manila."

Domingo identified the four as Ahmed Fayez, Ahmed al Ghamdi, Abdulaziz Al Omari and Saeed Alghamdi. She said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation had named them as hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks.

The FBI had named the first three as hijackers aboard the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and Saeed Alghamdi appeared on the U.S. list as among the hijackers of the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania.

The FBI released in Washington last week the names of 19 people, including seven pilots, who it said commandered the four airliners used in the attacks. - Reuters

No news has been heard of the eight since the September 11 kamikaze attacks in New York and Washington, which has left more than 5,000 presumed dead, and many had not been heard of for long periods.
-- the father of Waleed and Wail Mohammad Ali al-Shehri said his sons left Khamees Mshait, in southern Saudi Arabia, for the holy city of Medina in December for Wail's treatment of a mental illness by a cleric.
-- the mother of Ahmad Ibrahim al-Ghamdi, 20, said her son had been studying engineering in the Saudi city of Mecca before departing for Chechnya without his family's knowledge two years ago.
-- the father of Fayez Mohammad al-Shehri said his son had also left Saudi Arabia two years ago with an Islamic relief committee for an unknown destination.
-- the father of Ahmad Abdullah al-Naimi said his son interrupted his studies and disappeared about 15 months ago. But he said he was not certain that the suspect on the FBI list was his son.
-- relatives of Nawaf al-Hazemi, 25, and Salem al-Hazemi, 21, both on the list of suspects, said the first left for Chechnya four years ago, and the second 18 months ago.
-- sources close to the family of suspect Hani Hanjour said he left for the United Arab Emirates last December and since then knew nothing about him.
But three Saudis whose names appear on the list have categorically denied any involvement, saying they were outside the US when the attacks took place. Eleven of the 19 people on the FBI list are believed to be Saudis.

But the names are very common in the kingdom, where people normally trace their roots back to their family clan or tribes, meaning many people bear similar names. - AFP

Others expressed concern about the plight of ordinary people in Afghanistan, whose Taliban rulers are sheltering Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in last week's attacks in New York and Washington.

One Kashmiri religious organisation on Wednesday urged Muslim clerics across Kashmir to educate people about the "crimes of America against the Islamic community around the world".

The group, the Muslim Deeni Mahaz (Muslim Religious Front), also said in a statement in a mass circulation newspaper it was time to repay the debt owed to Afghanistan's mujahedeen, or Islamic warriors. "If we cannot give our lives to the proud and miserable Afghans, at least we can pray for the safety of orphans, widows and victims," the group said.

The deputy chairwoman of the People's Democratic Party, the main opposition party in India's Jammu and Kashmir state, said most Kashmiris felt the United States had been unfair in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan and had brought the attacks upon itself.

"America has had a role in the creation of terrorism worldwide," Mehbooba Mufti told Reuters. She also said it would be unfair if the United States attacked Afghanistan in its hunt for bin Laden. "How can you be ready to wipe out a whole nation for one man, are America's hands clean?" she asked. Pakistan, under pressure from the United States, is trying to persuade the Taliban to hand over bin Laden.

CRITICAL OF INDIAN SUPPORT

Kashmir is divided between Hindu-dominated India and Islamic Pakistan. More than 30,000 people have been killed in a separatist rebellion that has roiled Indian-controlled Kashmir for 12 years. New Delhi says many of the rebels are of Pakistani and Afghan origin.

Kashmiri guerrillas have not yet spelled out their stand on last week's attacks in the United States but some Kashmiris have criticised New Delhi for offering support to Washington in any possible strikes against bin Laden.

A cartoon in a local newspaper showed Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah wiping away America's tears while stabbing Kashmiris in the back. Indian security officials are wondering what the impact of any U.S. military operation in Afghanistan might be in Kashmir.

One said there was speculation more rebels could infiltrate into the Kashmir Valley from Pakistan as they came under pressure there. But there was also speculation some militants might leave Kashmir to fight alongside their comrades in Afghanistan.

But one official said intercepts of messages between rebels in Kashmir suggested they were preparing to dig in as winter approached the Himalayan region.

The army said earlier this week that it had stepped up its vigil on the border after reports that Pakistan had closed militant training camps prompted concern that there could be a flood of guerrillas into Kashmir. - Reuters

The United States has warned Afghanistan to surrender the militant Saudi exile, whom Washington believes is behind the attacks that left nearly 6,000 people dead and missing, or face the consequences. The Taliban say bin Laden is their "guest."

"We appeal to the U.S. government to exercise complete patience," the Pakistan-based AIP news agency quoted Mullah Mohammad Omar, spiritual leader of the purist Taliban, as saying in a speech read out to a meeting of hundreds of clerics gathered in the presidential palace in the capital, Kabul. Appearing to rule out any swift handover of the 44-year-old multimillionaire who has become the world's most wanted man,

Omar said: "We want America to gather complete information and find the culprits." Evidence could be submitted to the Afghan Supreme Court or to clerics of three Islamic nations, he said.

"We assure the whole world that neither Osama nor anyone else can use Afghan territory against anyone," said the reclusive, one-eyed leader who is considered a chief protector of bin Laden. Bin Laden has denied masterminding the attacks. The grand council of clerics, or shura, could decide on what to do about bin Laden and whether to back the call of the Taliban leader for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States if the country is attacked.

A bellicose President George W. Bush has vowed justice for America's dead with a war on "terrorism," which is being worked out in secret and will use economic and diplomatic strategies as well as military options that could range from covert operations to ground war.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans are on the move, fearing a massive U.S. punishment strike. Those left in Kabul were stockpiling food. Assembling a broad coalition for his campaign that targets bin Laden as a prime suspect in the devastating attacks by airliners on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush will use his persuasive powers on Wednesday at the White House when a parade of dignitaries visits from Asia, Europe and Russia.

Omar said that international pressure over bin Laden had another goal, destruction of the Islamic state. "The enemies of this country look on the Islamic system as a thorn in their eye and they seek different excuses to finish it off," he said. "Osama bin Laden is one of these," Omar told the clerics.

AFGHAN CLERICS TAKE CENTER STAGE

Pakistani officials left Afghanistan on Tuesday after trying to convince the Taliban that if they do not hand over the Saudi-born militant their turbaned fighters will face the full wrath of the world's most powerful military force.

Giving shelter to one who asks is a centuries-old tradition, part of an unwritten code called Pashtunwali -- the way of the Pashtuns -- that Afghanistan's mainly ethnic Pashtun people are required to uphold even at the cost of their lives.

The Taliban, however, appeared on Tuesday to shift their opposition to extraditing bin Laden, who was reported to have left Kabul and traveled on horseback with his bodyguards to a rugged mountain retreat.

"Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him," said Afghanistan's interior minister. But in talks with the delegation from Pakistan, the Taliban said they needed "proof" before they would consider turning the millionaire exile over to an Islamic country for trial. Newspapers in neighboring Pakistan said that Afghanistan, which has harbored bin Laden for years, could be ready to turn him over under certain conditions, one of which was that he must be tried in a neutral Islamic nation.

The reports could not be independently confirmed, but Afghan Information Minister Qudrutullah Jamal, in a telephone interview from Kabul with Reuters in Islamabad, gave his country's first acknowledgment that bin Laden could have been involved in the attacks. But he said bin Laden's involvement must be proven before he could be handed over.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington that providing proof could be a problem because of the need to protect intelligence sources. A U.S. team of intelligence and military officials, is expected this week to visit Pakistan, one of just three nations to recognize the Taliban government, to discuss what Bush has described as the first war of the 21st century.

As tensions mounted in the region, the Taliban asked U.S. news channel CNN to withdraw its correspondent from Afghanistan. The British High Commission in Islamabad told diplomatic dependents and nonessential staff to leave Pakistan.

GLOBAL RECESSION, "GLIMMER OF HOPE"

The attacks raised the specter of global recession, opened a new page in the history of warfare and caused governments around the world to tighten security and overhaul their now-outdated 20th century view of international stability.

The far-reaching economic consequences of the attacks were illustrated late on Tuesday when No. 1 aircraft manufacturer Boeing announced plans to lay off up to 30,000 workers by the end of 2002. U.S. stocks dropped for a second successive day on Tuesday amid fears of war and recession.

Investors waited for Wall Street on Wednesday after the Dow Jones industrial average on Tuesday closed down 17.30 points, or 0.19 percent, at 8,903.40, its lowest close since December 1998. Tokyo stocks ended up again for a second day but in early London trading shares weakened. Bush, who signed a congressional resolution on Tuesday authorizing military action, also put his name to a $40 billion aid package to pump into recovering from the attacks.

A week after the fiery destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center -- a symbol of U.S. economic prosperity -- New York faced the wrenching question of when to end a search for survivors and focus instead on recovering the dead. In the Middle East, there was what Bush called a "glimmer of hope" when the Palestinians announced a cease-fire and Israel said it would withdraw troops from areas previously ceded to Palestinian control.

The orders by Israeli Prime Minisser Arafat came amid pressure to end a year of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed widely seen as an obstacle to U.S. efforts to forge an alliance against terror. Bush, who has seen pledges of support tempered by appeals to keep a cool head, was further encouraged by a show of unity from French President Jacques Chirac who pledged "complete solidarity" at a meeting in Washington. So far Bush has spoken to 20 leaders by telephone. President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, meets Bush on Wednesday.

TOP SECRET PLANS, TERROR FUNDING TARGETED

Rumsfeld gave some insights into Washington's top secret military planning, which officials say will also target the funding that is the lifeblood of terror networks.

"We are preparing appropriate courses of action ... they run across the political and economic and financial, military, intelligence spectrum," he said in Washington. On the question of striking Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest and harshest countries geographically, he said it would be a difficult military target for any nation. "Several countries have exhausted themselves pounding that country..."

The U.N. Security Council added to growing international pressure when it called for Afghanistan to surrender bin Laden "immediately and unconditionally." The United Nations had previously demanded that he be handed over to face charges of blowing up U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. In New York, rescue workers in the twisted rubble of the World Trade Center found nothing but bodies and body parts. The list of the missing stood at 5,422 people, he said. Only 218 were confirmed dead, 66 of them unidentified.

The hijackers, in a coordinated attack, crashed airliners into the two 110-story skyscrapers of the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon near Washington. A fourth jet crashed into a field in western Pennsylvania. Officials said 189 were dead or missing at the Pentagon, including 64 passengers on the American Airlines jet that struck the military headquarters. The Defense Department said on Tuesday it would cost at least $520 million to repair the structure. Forty-five people died in the Pennsylvania crash.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the FBI was investigating whether other aircraft may have been targeted for hijacking in the elaborate plot the government pins on bin Laden and his Muslim followers. He said 75 people who may have information on the attacks were now in custody for immigration violations and 190 more were wanted for questioning. U.S. officials have named 19 men they say used knives and box cutters in the hijacks. - Reuters

"We are very worried about our relatives who are still stuck in Afghanistan," said Sardar Manohar Singh, president of the Khalsa Diwan Welfare Society, a society of Afghan Sikhs who fled Kabul in 1979 when Soviet forces invaded. More refugees, mostly Hindus and Sikhs, poured into India between 1992-1995 when the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban came to power in Kabul.

According to Singh, up to 7,000 Sikh and Hindus still live in Afghanistan. "They are our relatives and friends who want to come to India. We are trying to get them here," Singh said. Singh's association Wednesday made a representation to the foreign office in New Delhi, requesting visas for any Sikh or Hindu families seeking refuge in India.

The refugees' concern has not, however, prevented them supporting US strikes against the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in last week's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington who is believed to be in hiding in Afghanistan.

Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar clearly signalled Wednesday that his regime was ready to face a massive US military attack rather than hand over bin Laden. "Of course we support strikes. The Taliban have continuously harassed us and we are not safe there. We would like a new government installed," Singh said.

On Tuesday, the Indian government issued new directives asking all Afghan refugees to register themselves at the home ministry. "We welcome this step as this has been our long standing demand," he said. "This way we can officially be refugees and the state can then help us."

The decision was taken as part of the number of precautionary and preparatory steps by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's government in preparation for expected US military action against Afghanistan. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in New Delhi, there are 11,684 registered Afghan refugees, nearly all of them living in the Indian capital.

"There could be many more, but they are not registered with us," said a UNHCR spokeswoman Nayana Bose. An unofficial estimate puts the total number of Afghan refugees in the country at more than 25,000. Bose also welcomed the government decision asking the refugees to register themselves.

"In fact, we have been asking India to have a comprehensive law for refugees," she said. "So far, these refugees don't even get work permits and most of them are engaged in the informal sector." Most Afghan families are employed in small-scale businesses in New Delhi, having received vocational training funded by the UNHCR. The UN agency also provides medical aid and subsidised education. - AFP

"The United States, Britain and Western nations and the world know that Iraq has nothing to do with the attacks against American interests," Sabri told al-Iqtisadi (Economist) weekly. Earlier, unidentified U.S. officials had said that Mohammed Atta, one of the suspected hijackers of one of two aircraft that crashed into the World Trade Center, had met Iraqi intelligence in Europe.

Senior U.S. officials, such as Vice President Dick Cheney had said there was no evidence linking Iraq to the attacks that left about 6,000 people dead or missing. Iraq has not yet responded to the reports of a meeting between Atta and its intelligence apparatus. It has said "unfair" U.S. foreign policy invited the attacks.

"It is unreasonable for the United States to impose on the world its definition of terrorism and include any armed action that targets its interest, policy, injustice..." Sabri said. But Baghdad has sent letters of condolence to U.S. personalities opposed to the U.N. sanctions on Iraq, which have severely damaged the country's economy and standard of living.

On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz sent a letter expressing sympathy with the victims to Voices in the Wilderness, a Chicago-based Charity. Aziz, a top aide to President Saddam Hussien, sent a similar letter to former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, according to the Iraqi News Agency's website. - Reuters

"We are quite satisfied with the security we are getting from Pakistan," she told reporters. The British High Commission in Islamabad issued a statement advising nationals that "in light of the security situation" they should consider whether to leave the country.

It said anybody in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Baluchistan and northern parts of the country -- all areas close to Afghanistan -- would be "strongly advised" to leave immediately. "British nationals will also want to be aware that the dependents of staff at our offices here and a few non-essential personnel who wish to leave will be leaving Pakistan," a spokesman said.

Other European Union countries, Australia and Canada have adopted a similar approach. Australia said that all its nationals in Pakistan should consider leaving. Previously it had advised only Australians in NWFP and Baluchistan to leave those areas.

"For embassy staff that means that some non-essential staff and dependents are leaving," a spokesman said. Diplomats stressed however that the departures were precautionary rather than a sign of sign of panic. The British High Commission has chartered a special flight to take some staff out of Pakistan but it is not due to leave until Friday, a diplomatic source told AFP.

"The embassies are thinning their staff out now when it is not too bad so that it is easier if we have to evacuate later," another western diplomat said. A European diplomat said there was however growing unease within the diplomatic community about the prospects of demonstrations against Pakistan's support for possible US action turning violent.

"There is a feeling lots of people want to leave, especially those who have children. In most cases, wives who do not have children are staying." The British school in Islamabad has already closed but the French and American schools were still open on Wednesday.

The acceleration of departures from Pakistan came a day after 5,000 people staged an anti-American demonstration in Karachi. It was the biggest since the start of the current crisis and police had to be deployed to stop the protestors marching on the American consulate in the city.

The demonstrations so far have been peaceful but sources in the intelligence community believe it is inevitable that hardline religious groups will resort to violence in their campaign against Pakistan's support for the United States.

A coalition of more than 30 Islamist parties has called for a nationwide wave of strikes and protests starting after prayers on Friday, the Muslim holy day. A council of senior religious leaders called Wednesday for a jihad, or holy war, if the US attacks Afghanistan. - AFP

At present visitors from all but 16 countries can enter Pakistan and stay for up to 30 days on a visa issued on their arrival. Under the new policy they will have to obtain a visa from a Pakistani consulate before departure.

The new policy will come into effect on September 26. Khan said any visitors who were already en route for Pakistan would be allowed into the country for 72 hours but would then have to apply for a visa extension.

Khan said security was a paramount concern for Pakistan in light of the current crisis with the likelihood of US military action against neighbouring Afghanistan.

He said immigration staff at airports and other entry points had been ordered to bar the entry of any suspicious individuals. Pakistani officials fear the country may be vulnerable to reprisals for its decision to offer support to the United States in the crisis. - AFP

But even he will have a tough job navigating a way out of the political minefield created by last week's terrorist attacks on the United States. Trapped between a United States bent on revenge and uncompromising Islamic radicals, at home and in Afghanistan, the 58-year-old general, who was due to address the nation later Wednesday, is facing the toughest battle of his life.

It is a battle that even some of his critics in Pakistan's mainstream political establishment agree he must win if the country is not to be plunged into anarchy. "There is no doubt that the regime is now facing a very tough situation and we have to hope that Musharraf can get out of it because the consequences of him failing for Pakistan would be unimaginable," says Hussain Haqqani, a former adviser to Nawaz Sharif, the elected premier deposed by the general two years ago.

Political analyst Hassan Askari says that once the current crisis erupted it was inevitable that Musharraf would realise that Pakistan had no option but to back the United States, even at the risk of a confrontation with the country's Muslim population. "Instinctively, like most Pakistani generals, he is pro-America," Askari said. "After all, that is where most of them send their children."

Musharraf is a practising Muslim but he has tried unsuccessfully to crack down on extremist groups blamed for regular sectarian violence throughout the country. A graduate of the Pakistan's prestigious Command and Staff College (CSC) in Quetta, Baluchistan, Musharraf is a military man from the tip of his immaculately trimmed moustache all the way down to his permanently buffed shoes.

He saw action in the 1965 war with India and has commanded an infantry division and a strike corps. He also has an academic bent having served on the faculty of the CSC and studied at Britain's Royal College of Defense Studies, before becoming army chief in 1998.

A distinguished military career might have ended there if he had not fallen out badly with Sharif, the man who made him army chief, over the handling of a 1999 flare-up in the long-running Kashmir conflict with India. Musharraf was infuriated when Sharif bowed to US pressure and ended a two-month conflict by recalling Pakistan-backed Islamic fighters from Indian Kashmir. Tensions came to a head in October 1999 when Sharif attempted to sack his top general while he was on a trip to Sri Lanka. Musharraf flew home immediately and ordered the army to arrest Sharif and half his cabinet.

A nationwide emergency was declared, parliament and the constitution suspended and Sharif was charged with hijacking for attempting to prevent Musharraf's plane from landing at Karachi as it was running out of fuel. Sharif was convicted of hijacking and corruption last year and sentenced to life imprisonment.

But after the intervention of the Saudi royal family, Musharraf pardoned the former prime minister in December and allowed him to leave for Saudi Arabia. It was an act that has allowed Musharraf to foster an image as something of a "soft' dictator, especially in comparison to his predecessor in Pakistan. Two years after the late General Zia ul-Haq took power in 1977, the ousted prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged.

But despite Musharraf's prediliction for being photographed with his fluffy little dogs and his decision to name himself president in June, his is still very much a military regime -- he presides personally over just about every influential body. But it is a regime that operates on the basis of collective decision-making and Musharraf is usually willing to compromise to ensure consensus among his core commanders.

The collegiate style, analysts say, is one reason why Musharraf's grip on power is secure and he is unlikely to face a challenge from within the armed forces. Unlike Zia, Musharraf has not imposed overt restrictions on the press, although political figures have been detained for months without charge on allegations of corruption.

Non-party elections have seen 178 local level chiefs and their deputies elected since December last year, and last month Musharraf unveiled a "road map" for democracy which committed his administration to holding elections in October next year. But the current crisis and the prospect of a wave of unrest led by Islamic militants sympathetic to the Taliban rulers of neighbouring Afghanistan have thrown all this into doubt.

If Pakistan's involvement in US action against Afghanistan is limited to the granting the use of airspace then Musharraf should not have too much difficulty in surviving. But if Washington decides it needs to send troops into Afghanistan through Pakistan, there is a serious risk of the country being ripped apart by the inevitable backlash.

Analysts are confident Musharraf can carry the military elite and the mainstream political leaders with him through the crisis. The big question is whether he can carry a population that were never asked if they wanted him as their leader. - AFP

Speaking on New Zealand and Australian television, the former cricketer turned politician said Pakistanis were also opposed to a war on their border, having weathered the fall-out from the Afghan War with the former Soviet Union between 1979 and 1989.

"Everyone is convinced the people responsible should be punished," said Khan in the television interviews broadcast on TVNZ Tuesday and Wednesday. "The moment that linkage is established then it would justify whatever action is taken in Afghanistan," Khan said from the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

"People at the moment are not certain that he is responsible, so therefore the attack in people's eyes is not justifiable." Khan said that even if a direct link was made with bin Laden such evidence must be presented to the Pakistani people not simply broadcast via satellite television from Washington.

"The masses need to be told on Pakistan TV, look here is the linkage, the man is responsible. Then I think you will find there will be support for action against Osama bin Laden," he said. Pakistan has become pivotal in U.S. strategy following last week's hijacker attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. Washington says Saudi-born Osama bin Laden is the prime suspect in the attack.

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban has so far refused to give up bin Laden, saying he is a guest, declaring a holy war on the United States and warning that any country which helps Washington in an attack will feel its wrath. Khan warned that if Pakistan was involved in an attack on Afghanistan it would have "far reaching implications in this part of the world".

"The people in Pakistan have had very close links with the people in Afghanistan. During the Afghan War...Pakistan was a front line state, all the help to the Afghans was provided by Pakistan, there was very close linkages," he said. "Therefore when they see a lot of civilians being killed in Afghanistan I am afraid there will be a reaction in Pakistan."

Anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan is already running high, with street protesters burning American flags. - Reuters

Bush borrowed the rhetoric of the frontier days of the old American West to tell Afghanistan's Taliban rulers the U.S. wanted bin Laden "dead or alive" for attacks on New York and Washington which left nearly 6,000 people dead or missing.

The grand council of clerics, or shura, will decide whether to back the call of Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States if attacked and what to do with bin Laden, who the Taliban say is a "guest" in their country.

A bellicose Bush has vowed justice for America's dead with a war on "terrorism," which is being worked out in secrecy and will use economic and diplomatic strategies as well as military options ranging from covert operations to ground war. Assembling a broad coalition for his campaign that targets bin Laden as a prime suspect in the devastating attacks by airliners on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush will use his powers of persuasion on Wednesday at the White House when a parade of dignitaries visits from Asia, Europe and Russia.

Pakistani officials left Afghanistan on Tuesday after trying to convince the Taliban that if they do not hand over the Saudi-born militant their turbaned fighters will face the full wrath of the world's most powerful army. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans are on the move, fearing a massive U.S. punishment strike. Those left in Kabul were stockpiling food.

The hard-line Islamic Taliban movement, however, appeared on Tuesday to shift their opposition to extraditing bin Laden, who was reported to have left Kabul and traveled on horseback with his bodyguards to a rugged mountain retreat.

"Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him," said Afghanistan's interior minister. But in talks with the delegation from Pakistan, the Taliban said they needed "proof" before they would consider turning the millionaire exile over to a neutral Islamic country for trial. The attacks raised the specter of global recession, opened a new page in the history of warfare and caused governments around the world to tighten security and overhaul their now-outdated 20th century view of international stability.

The far-reaching economic consequences of the attacks were illustrated late on Tuesday when No. 1 aircraft manufacturer Boeing announced plans to lay off up to 30,000 workers by the end of 2002. U.S. stocks dropped for a second successive day on Tuesday amid fears of war and recession. A week after the fiery destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center -- a symbol of U.S. economic prosperity -- New York faced the wrenching question of when to end a search for survivors and focus instead on recovering the dead.

"GLIMMER OF HOPE" AS BUSH BUILDS COALITION

In the Middle East, there was what Bush called a "glimmer of hope" when the Palestinians announced a cease-fire and Israel said it would withdraw troops from areas previously ceded to Palestinian control.

The orders by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat came amid pressure to end a year of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed widely seen as an obstacle to U.S. efforts to forge an alliance against terror. New promises to halt firing raised hopes that the two sides will soon meet for talks and an elusive truce will emerge.

Bush, who has seen pledges of support tempered by appeals to keep a cool head, was further encouraged by a show of unity from French President Jacques Chirac who pledged "complete solidarity" at a meeting in Washington. Chirac refused to call the U.S. campaign a "war," but Bush did not share his reservations keeping up the nation-at-war theme he began last week by appealing for disaster-relief donations to bolster the "home front." Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and Brazil's President Fernando Henrique Cardoso also vowed support for Bush on Tuesday. So far Bush has spoken to 20 leaders by telephone and this week started face-to-face meetings.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, meets Bush on Wednesday. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and his German counterpart Joschka Fischer also were to meet Bush at the White House

AFGHAN CLERICS TAKE CENTER STAGE

Newspapers in neighboring Pakistan said that Afghanistan, which has harbored bin Laden for years, could be ready to turn him over, but attached to conditions, one of which was he must be tried in a neutral Islamic nation.

The reports could not be independently confirmed, but Afghan Information Minister Qudrutullah Jamal, in a telephone interview from Kabul with Reuters in Islamabad, gave his country's first acknowledgment that bin Laden could have been involved in the attacks. "Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him," Jamal said. But he said bin Laden's involvement in the attacks must be proven before he could be handed over.

Hundreds of Afghan Muslim clerics met in Kabul on Wednesday to decide whether to bow to international demands. The clerics, wearing traditional headdress, met at the presidential palace in the center of the city, witnesses said. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington that providing proof could be a problem because of the need to protect intelligence sources.

The United Nations Security Council added to growing international pressure when it called for Afghanistan to surrender bin Laden "immediately and unconditionally." The U.N. General Assembly said on Tuesday it will indefinitely delay its annual debate of world leaders due to the strained security services in New York.

FADING HOPES FOR MISSING

In New York, rescue workers in the twisted rubble of the World Trade Center found nothing but bodies and body parts.

"The chances of recovering any live human beings are very, very small," said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. "We don't have any substantial amount of hope that we can offer to anyone that we are going to be able to find anyone alive." The list of the missing stood at 5,422 people, he said. Only 218 were confirmed dead, 66 of them unidentified. The dead hailed from 62 nations, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

"To see it closer gives you a completely different dimension," said Annan who saw the scene at first hand. "We need to come together to defeat terrorism, and we have to cooperate across the board to be able to do it." The hijackers, in a coordinated attack, crashed airliners into the two 110-story skyscrapers of the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon near Washington. A fourth jet crashed into a field in western Pennsylvania.

Officials said 189 were dead or missing at the Pentagon, including 64 passengers on the American Airlines jet that struck the huge military headquarters. The Defense Department said on Tuesday it would cost at least $520 million to repair the structure. Forty-five people died in the Pennsylvania crash.

FBI INVESTIGATION

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the FBI was investigating whether other aircraft may have been targeted for hijacking in the elaborate plot the government pins on bin Laden and his Muslim followers. He said 75 people who may have information about the attacks were now in custody for immigration violations and a further 190 were wanted for questioning.

U.S. sources tolking into possible links between one of the attack suspects and an Iraqi intelligence official with whom he met earlier this year in Europe. U.S. officials have named 19 men they say used knives and box cutters to hijack the four commercial airliners. The United States remained jittery in the wake of the attacks and extra sky marshals are riding the air routes. There has been talk of elite Delta Force troops riding shotgun on aircraft to deter hijackers.

Tweezers, pencil sharpeners and manicure sets have been seized in the wake of the attacks and law enforcement officials surrounded an airliner at Washington's Dulles airport on Tuesday in what turned out to be a false alarm. In an ominous development, the FBI warned crop-spraying plane operators to be on alert because of the remote chance that extremists might resort to chemical warfare. - Reuters

But the investigation acquired a new dimension, when the Central Intelligence Agency began looking into reports that one of the hijackers, who took part in last week's terrorist attacks, met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official prior to them, a US government source told AFP. "There is an indication that such a meeting occurred earlier this year in Europe," the source said. The hijacker in question was Mohammed Atta, the man believed to have been inside an American Airlines plane that was the first to crash into the World Trade Center, according to the source.

But at the moment, the CIA was not certain the meeting "had anything to do with Tuesday's events," the source said. US Attorney General John Ashcroft refused any comment when asked Tuesday about a possible Iraqi connection. "I wouldn't be in a position to discuss evidence in regard to questions about other responsible parties," he said.

The attacks, in which two jet airliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, have left at least 5,600 missing and presumed dead. A third hijacked plane struck the Pentagon outside Washington, and a fourth crashed in a field in the state of Pennsylvania after its passengers apparently forcefully resisted the hijackers.

One full week after the tragedy, investigators were questioning 75 people detained for immigration violations as they pursued more that 96,000 leads in hopes to figure out the full scope of the plot. Administration officials have warned that members of the terrorist conspiracy may still be on the loose on US soil and could strike again.

Meanwhile federal prosecutors impaneled a grand jury in White Planes, New York, to make it easier to subpoena people and documents, according to law enforcement sources.

In Texas, FBI agents have raided a flight school in the city Arlington seeking information about a man they had removed from a train in Fort Worth, The Dallas Morning News reported.

They were inquiring about Ayub Ali Khan, arrested last Thursday along with an individual named Mohammed Jaweed Azmath during a drug sweep at a Forth Worth train station. The two men were travelling to San Antonio, the report said.

The men had 5,000 dollars in cash as well as box cutters, the weapon used by the hijackers to take control of the planes, according to police.

Khan reportedly had a outstanding deportation order against him before he was detained. Both and he and Azmath were taken to New York for questioning, according to law enforcement sources.

The two were held in New York together with a San Antonio, Texas, resident named Albader Al-Hazmi, a radiologist from Saudi Arabia, who worked at the University of Texas Health Science Center, according to the Dallas Morning News. Federal investigators are also pursuing a lead in Southern California, said an official without providing specifics.

The San-Diego Union-Tribune reported that a unidentified San Diego resident suspected of financially aiding Nawaf Alhamzi and Khalid Al-Midhar, two of the alleged hijackers, had been taken into custody late Sunday. In Boston, federal agents have searched an apartment complex which is home to relatives of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born exile named the main suspect in the terrorist attacks, the Boston Herald reported Wednesday.

The agents arrived at the Flagship Wharf condominium complex hours after the attacks, according to the paper, which said that at least two bin Laden relatives -- Mohammed bin Laden and Nawaf bin Laden -- currently own units in the complex.

In Detroit, the FBI arrested three men after allegedly finding them with false identification papers and notes about a U.S. military base in Turkey, according to media reports. - AFP

The FBI, which has trickled information to the US media in the week since four aircraft were hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, reportedly has honed in on five men. Among them is Habib Zacarias Moussaoui, of French or Algerian nationality, who was detained in Minnesota on August 17 for illegally entering the United States, local authorities told the Washington Post.

Moussaoui, according to reports, had tried unsuccessfully to complete pilot training courses and he appeared more concerned with learning how to steer a plane than being taught how to land. Since the attacks, the FBI has asked France for information about Moussaoui, who had travelled several times to Kabul, the French l'Independent reported. - AFP

The Taleban army also unleashed a fierce offensive against their last opponents within the country in a bid to pre-empt US moves to strengthen them.

The display of defiance from the Taleban came as their supporters in Pakistan mounted the biggest anti-American demonstration yet, heightening fears that any US attack on Afghanistan will have devastating implications for the stability of its neighbour.

"Of course if there is an invasion of an Islamic country, there will be jihad against the invaders," a senior Taleban official told AFP as hundreds of ulema, streamed into Kabul.

The ulema are expected today to begin a meeting which will consider whether to extradite Osama bin Laden.

"Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him," Information Minister Qudrutullah Jamal told Reuters by telephone from Kabul, conceding for the first time that Bin Laden may have been involved in the attacks.

Mr Jamal was speaking just hours after high-ranking Pakistani officials flew home after two days of talks aimed at persuading the Taleban that if they do not hand over Bin Laden. "We told them (the Pakistani delegation) to give us proof that he did it, because without that how can we give him up?" Mr Jamal said.

Asked if the Taleban had any other conditions for handing over Bin Laden, Mr Jamal said they wanted guarantees that, if charged, Bin Laden would face trial in a third country.

"We want proof first and we have been saying this for two years," Mr Jamal said, referring to demands for Bin Laden's handover after the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

"If they had listened to us then, things would not have come to such a pass," he said. The Pakistani team met Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taleban's spiritual leader, on Monday in Kandahar to convey the gravity of the situation facing the Taleban if they continue to shelter Bin Laden as a "guest".

They then flew to Kabul and had talks yesterday with Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhond, deputy head of the Taleban Council of Ministers and Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil. "Our response to them was that we should not hesitate in using sensitivity in the matter," the Foreign Minister said in Kabul. "Innocent people should not be killed."

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Muhammed Khan refused to disclose the outcome of the trip. The team, led by intelligence chief General Mahmood Ahmed, had no plans to go back.

"The Pakistan delegation had fruitful talks here in Kabul by the grace of God," Taleban Information Ministry spokesman Abdul Rahman said. Meanwhile, some of the 1,000 ulema were having difficulty reaching the capital in time for the shura, called by Mullah Omar.

But the ulema arriving yesterday were in no mood for compromise. In Kabul residents were told to remain indoors from 9.30pm to 4.30am. The previous curfew was from 11pm to 03.30am. - AFP, Reuters

"There is one and only one message the Security Council has for the Taleban: implement United Nations Security Council resolutions, in particular UN Security Council Resolution 1333, immediately and unconditionally," Mr Levitte, the French UN ambassador, said.

Meanwhile, the US yesterday accelerated its diplomatic drive to build a global anti-terrorism coalition as President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell began a flurry of meetings here with top foreign officials.

Mr Bush was to receive French President Jacques Chirac, the first foreign head of state to visit the US since last week's attacks, later in the day.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri are to meet Mr Bush later in the week as a parade of foreign ministers and other senior officials passes through Washington. Gen. Powell has scheduled meetings with 10 European, Asian and Arab foreign ministers. - AFP

As investors waited to see if share prices would plunge again after the biggest one day point drop in history on Monday, U.S. officials awaited word from Afghanistan where senior Islamic clerics were due to decide the fate of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born guerrilla leader identified as Washington's prime suspect behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bush, in his clearest warning yet, said on Monday that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive" and would hold Afghanistan's ruling Taliban government accountable with the full power of the U.S. military if it failed to turn him over. The Taliban, which has warned of a "holy war" in response to any U.S. attack, has given no indication it is ready to surrender the fugitive multimillionaire.

In New York, recovery work continued at the site of the World Trade Center's 110-story twin towers, now a half million tonne mountain of smoking rubble in which as many as 5,000 people are feared entombed. Officials said that hopes were dwindling that anyone would still be found alive in the wreckage.

Nerves were also frayed on Wall Street, where Monday's effort to restart America's financial heart after its longest closure since the Great Depression of the 1930s unleashed a stampede of sell orders.

After a day of wild trading, the Dow Jones industrial index plummeted 684.81 points, or more than 7 percent, its biggest one day point drop ever. The Nasdaq composite index and the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index also slumped to their lowest closes since October 1998.

There were signs of hope in Asia, where stock markets from Tokyo to Sydney rallied in early trading on Tuesday, sparked in part by moves by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to cut interest rates by half a percentage point in an effort to bolster economic confidence.

But caution persisted, with many economic analysts concerned that Washington's promised campaign against global terror could hit consumer sentiment worldwide.

MORE OUT THERE?

Those jitters were felt across the United States as senior officials warned that the country was heading into a period of "increased risk" for future attacks.

Officials have named 19 men they say used knives and boxcutters to commandeer four commercial airlines last Tuesday, sending two planes hurtling into the World Trade Center and smashing another into the Pentagon. The fourth jet crashed in Pennsylvania, apparently after passengers fought back against the hijackers.

U.S. authorities have arrested on sealed warrants at least four witnesses with key information about the attacks or who posed a flight risk. They have also detained 49 other people for immigration violations in the course of questioning about the attacks.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, pressing Congress to expand the ability of law enforcement to wiretap telephones, conduct searches and seize assets, warned Monday that associates of the hijackers may still be at large in the Une need to understand that there is a risk, and when this nation responds globally, I think it's fair to understand that it maybe that there would be an increased risk associated with acts against the American people," Ashcroft said on CNN's "Larry King Live" program.

Along with dramatically increased security at the nation's airports, Americans are facing a range of new security measures everywhere from baseball stadiums to office high-rises. Airline pilots and crews, preparing for a government task force created in the wake of last week's attacks, have advocated more secure cockpit doors and guns for pilots in the effort to block any future hijack attempts.

BUSH WARNS TALIBAN, BIN LADEN

Bush, who has warned Americans to prepare for what he has called "the first war of the 21st Century," continued to ratchet up the rhetoric, warning both bin Laden and Afghanistan's ruling Taliban that the United States will not rest until those behind the attacks are brought to justice.

Although both the Taliban and bin Laden have denied involvement in the attacks, Bush clearly had them in his sights on Monday when he spoke to reporters during a visit to the Pentagon.

"I want justice," said Bush, surrounded by senior U.S. military officials. "And there's an old poster out West that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'"

In Afghanistan's capital of Kabul, senior Islamic clerics were due to meet on Tuesday after the country's supreme leader said it would be up to them to decide the fate of bin Laden, who has been sheltered as a "guest" of the purist Taliban regime.

"The decision and edict of the clerics ... is important and compulsory and the government will implement it fully," Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutamaen told the Afghan Islamic Press.

A delegation of officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan's neighbor and a key player in the unfolding U.S. effort to mount a global united front against terror, extended their visit to Afghanistan by another day in a bid to convince the Taliban of the danger they face by continuing to harbor bin Laden.

Officials began fleeing Kabul amid growing expectations of a U.S. attack, and the Taliban moved weapons, including Russian Scud missiles, near the border with Pakistan, a nuclear power. With Washington warning the world it was time to pick sides, Britain and Italy said they would contribute militarily if asked to.

But there were also words of caution. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, said it was "too early" to speak of a coalition against "terrorism," while Iran's supreme leader warned that any attack on Afghanistan could lead to even more problems for America.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT FEARED

As New Yorkers resolutely returned to work on Monday, untold numbers of people missing loved ones in the World Trade Center ruins began the more painful task of accepting that the miracles may not happen. The toll of the missing stood at 5,422, with 201 confirmed dead, after six days of rescue efforts at the still-smoking remains of the 110-story twin towers. Of the dead, only 135 have so far been identified.

At the mountain of rubble dubbed "the pile," hundreds of firefighters crawled through narrow tunnels and donned harnesses to lower themselves into holes looking for life -- even as officials acknowledged that spirits were flagging.

"I think we all basically realized the chances of finding somebody are next to nothing," retired police veteran Robert Crystal said. "It's getting somber and I think the anger is getting to us." But family members urged them on. Christina Barton, who drove from Florida to search for her missing daughter Jeanmarie Wallendorf, was braced for the worst after learning that her daughter worked on a floor directly hit by a hijacked jet.

"If there was a little, God forbid, piece of her left, I'm taking my daughter back. No matter what," Barton said.

The economic fallout from the disaster was also looking increasingly grim, prompting Bush to announce that he was prepared to work with Congress to develop an economic stimulus package that aides said could contain more tax cuts.

"I've got great faith in the economy. I understand it's tough right now," Bush told reporters. One sector desperate for help is the airline industry, which led Monday's stock market decline and faces financial chaos in the wake of last week's nationwide shutdown and the raft of new security measures airline companies have been ordered to implement.

With layoffs already under way, several major airline company executives were due to meet with Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta on Tuesday to go over a request for $24 billion in government aid to stabilize their finances. "This is not a bailout. This is survival we're talking about," Air Transport Association spokesman Michael Wascom told Reuters. - Reuters.

Inter Services Intelligence chief, General Mahmoood Ahmed, left the embassy along with his deputy, a Foreign Ministry official, the deputy ambassador and the defence attache for talks at an undisclosed destination in the increasingly isolated Afghan capital, said the officials, who declined to be identified.

The team had spent the previous day meeting the spiritual leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, in his southern Afghanistan power centre in the city of Kandahar to tell him that unless he surrenders Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, he risks a devastating U.S. strike. - Reuters

It was unclear whether the Shura (council) meeting would discuss surrendering bin Laden in line with U.S. demands, or even if it had the authority to do so given the reverence that surrounds his chief protector, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the spiritual leader of the purist Taliban.

Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutamaen told the Afghan Islamic Press that the meeting "will fully discuss and take a decision on the latest situation arising out of a possible attack by the United States and (out of) Osama bin Laden.

"The decision and edict of the clerics...is important and compulsory and the government will implement it fully," he said. The Shura of some 1,000 clerics was convened by Mullah Omar, but the reclusive spiritual leader of the Taliban movement was not expected to attend.

Pakistani officials said it was possible that a Pakistani team in Afghanistan on a mission to convince the ruling Taliban of the danger they face from a possible U.S. attack would attend or be briefed on results of the Shura. The Pakistani team left its embassy in Kabul early in the morning for talks in the city, Pakistani officials said. They are carrying a message from President Pervez Musharraf, officials said.

Inter Services Intelligence chief, General Mahmood Ahmed, left the embassy along with his deputy, a foreign ministry official, the deputy ambassador and the defence attache for talks at an undisclosed destination in the increasingly isolated Afghan capital, said the officials, who declined to be identified.

The team had spent the previous day meeting Mullah Omar in his southern stronghold in the city of Kandahar to tell him that unless he surrenders bin Laden, prime suspect in the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York and an attack on the Pentagon in Washington, he risks a devastating U.S. strike.

It was not known if bin Laden's possible role in the assassination last week of Afghan opposition leader Ahmad Shah Masood would complicate the discussions.

U.S. officials said they thought associates of bin Laden were involved in the death last week of Masood, the last strong leader of resistance to total Taliban control of the landlocked country that has been ravaged by war for more than 20 years.

"I think it (the Masood assassination) was a favour done by bin Laden for the Taliban," one official told Reuters, but it was unclear if the officials seized on bin Laden as the culprit by deduction or whether they had some proof.

11TH-HOUR MISSION

The Pakistani delegation held three hours of talks on Monday with Mullah Omar in Kandahar, on what Pakistan's Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar called an 11th-hour mission to avert a major crisis. Mutamaen called the talks "positive" but gave no hint as to what progress, if any, had been achieved. "We are 60 percent hopeful that conditions will be returned to normal."

The Pakistan team decided to extend its visit for another day and flew to Kabul in a bid to convince the Taliban of the danger they face by continuing to harbour bin Laden after last week's attacks in the United States.

The United States says bin Laden -- a "guest" of the Taliban for several years -- is a prime suspect and has vowed to punish those responsible and anyone who protects them.

President George W. Bush said Americans want bin Laden "dead or alive". Sattar said the Pakistani delegation had delivered no ultimatum or warning to Mullah Omar from the United States, nor was the mission the begining of a negotiation.

"The U.S. feels very deeply hurt. It doesn't have the patience for arguments for negotiation. It is time for action, decisions," he told Reuters on Monday. Pakistan is one of only three countries to recognise the Taliban government and was a key backer of the purist Islamic movement as it seized most of the country in the mid-1990s.

But their ties may be fraying as Pakistan military ruler Musharraf has promised full cooperation with U.S. efforts to end global terrorism. Pakistan was angered by a blunt warning delivered by the Taliban ambassador, who threatened revenge if it helped Washington. "That was not welcome," Sattar said.

DENIALS

Bin Laden and the Taliban have denied any involvement in the U.S. attacks. Sattar said it was possible the Taliban were simply unaware of the strength of international feeling against them.

"Try to picture the environment in which the government makes decisions," he said of the Taliban and their leader, a reclusive, one-eyed cleric who has never been photographed and is believed to have met only two non-Muslims in his life.

Sattar said unless the Taliban volunteered a positive reaction, they could well bring about their own demise. Mullah Omar has already warned the Taliban would declare a jihad, or holy war, against the United States if it attacked and also against any country that helped Washington.

But despite the bravado, there were signs of nervousness among the leadership, with witnesses saying some Taliban officials had began fleeing Kabul.

Pakistan effectively closed its borders on Monday as tens of thousands of Afghans streamed toward the frontier, sparking fears of a mass exodus and prompting aid officials to put emergency plans in place.

Aid officials were worried large numbers of Afghans may head for neighbouring Pakistan, already overburdened with more than 2.5 million Afghan refugees from two decades of strife.

The border was effectively closed, with only trucks carrying such items as grapes and melons and Afghans equipped with valid travel documents allowed to enter Pakistan at the Torkham gate that divides the Khyber Pass from Afghanistan, officials said.

They said Pakistan had tightened security at crossing points along its porous 1,400-km (880-mile) border with Afghanistan. - Reuters

State-run television Doordarshan fell silent at 10:30 a.m. (0500 GMT), as did Star New television, which showed images of the mayhem and suffering unleashed when two hijacked passenger jets were flown into the World Trade Centre towers a week ago.

Traffic in the heart of New Delhi was halted by police and some people at busy markets stopped what they were doing. But across the city and in the commercial capital, Bombay, many went about their business as usual. Most currency and debt traders were unaware of the call by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for "a silent prayer, a silent resolve".

Those who were aware of it, honoured the call. "We didn't quote, didn't trade, all of us in the dealing room just stood up and observed silence for two minutes," said the head of currency trading at a foreign bank.

"We switched off the dealing screens and did not take any phone calls for two minutes from 10:30 a.m. We just stood in silence," one dealer at a private sector bank said.

In Srinagar, the summer capital of the rebellion-torn Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, the cacophony of daily life continued as usual.

India has offered to allow U.S. military forces to use its bases, if needed to hit back at Osama bin Laden -- the chief suspect in last week's devastating attacks -- who is being sheltered by the ruling Taliban of Afghanistan. - Reuters

Speaking to reporters in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, the former Nobel peace prize winner said he had already sent a letter to US President George W. Bush, questioning the need for violent retaliation.

"Any problem with humanity should be solved in a humanitarian way and non-violence is the human way of approaching a target," the Dalai Lama said, adding that the "inhuman and unthinkable" attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had to be seen in a wider historical perspective.

"A lot of things -- colonialism, imperialism and communism -- have spurred such a devasting and shocking attack," he said.

"In this case, the enemy is invisible and just picking one individual is difficult." The Dalai Lama also voiced concern that the rhetoric of revenge was whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment, with Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden and the Islamic Taliban regime in Afghanistan the main focus of US warnings of retribution.

"It is wrong to describe what happened as an act by Muslim terrorists. "I think all religions have the same potential to strengthen human values and to develop general harmony," he said. - AFP

The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, added in an interview with the Iranian newspaper Entekhab that bin Laden would only be extradited if his guilt were proved by an Islamic court.

"There has been no contact with the Americans and we have received no indirect message" relating to bin Laden, the Saudi multi-millionaire who is accused by the United States of mounting the September 11 attacks which killed an estimated 5,000 people, Zaeef said. He added: "We think that any accusation by the United States must be proved judicially."

"If it is proved before a court convened under sharia (Islamic law) that he did this, we are prepared to hand him over to international authorities," Zaeef said. He called on Iran, which backs the former Afghan government toppled by the Taliban in 1996, to "stand by the Muslim people of Afghanistan" and warned Pakistan its cooperation with the United States would have "many effects."

Pakistan on Monday launched a last-ditch effort to persuade the Taliban to hand over bin Laden and avert a US military attack that would have grave consequences for the entire region. A delegation led by the head of Pakistan's influential intelligence service, a long-standing ally and backer of the Taliban, began the make-or-break talks with the Afghan militia's leaders by meeting Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

In case of a US attack, "we will fight to the death," Zaeef said. "We will defend ourselves seriously, as we did against the Russians," he added, referring to the unsuccessful Russian campaign in Afghanistan launched in 1979.

Zaeef said the US aim was not to wipe out bin Laden but to establish a military presence in central Asia. Meanwhile an Iranian-based leader of the Afghan opposition to the Taliban, Mohamad Fayaz, told the daily Iran News that if bin Laden was proved to be responsible for last week's attacks, US retaliation was justified. "However the question is how much and to what extent will the innocent Afghani population suffer from a retaliatory strike by the US military," he said.

Iran Daily for its part quoted leading members of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy committee expressing alarm over the fallout for Iran from any US attack on Afghanistan. Such an attack "can affect our national and security interests due to our borders with that country," Mohammad Kyanoushrad said. "Foreign ministry officials should adopt appropriate measures".

Colleague Hassan Qasqavi said: "Any US attack against Afghanistan would entail negative results for Iran" and not be beneficial to Washington in the long run. "Attacking Afghanistan, a war-trodden country with a poor economy, cannot have an impact on the fight against terrorism," he added. - AFP

More than 30 parties, which make up the newly-formed Council for Defence of Afghanistan and Pakistan, agreed at a meeting in Lahore that they would "consider any US attack on Afghanistan as an attack on Pakistan." They warned that Pakistani cooperation with any attack could trigger civil war in the country.

The Council called for strikes and protests across Pakistan from Friday in a bid to force the government of President Pervez Musharraf to reverse its decision to cooperate with whatever action the US decides to take against Afghanistan. "If Afghanistan declares jihad (holy war) against America, we will stand by them," the parties said in statement.

"Pakistan will have to suffer devastating consequences for a long, long time." Pakistan's mainstream political parties have backed Musharraf's handling of the crisis and accepted that the country cannot afford to stand in the way of the US. - AFP

"They are amassing arms, ammunitions and fuel," he added. The Taliban Islamist militia controls more than 90 percent of Afghan territory. The anti-Taliban Northern Alliance's military commander Ahmad Shah Masood, who was critically wounded in an attack September 9, was declared officially dead Saturday and buried Sunday in northeastern Afghanistan.

Reghistani said the assassination had been ordered by Pakistani secret services, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, the Afghan-based Islamist millionaire whom Washington suspects of having masterminded the September 11 terror attacks in the United States. - AFP

The majority of the agents arrived overnight Thursday and early Friday when Islamabad airport was closed mysteriously for five hours,, the sources said. The Americans are involved in advance liaison work and the selection of Pakistani officers to work with them in preparation for possible military operations in or against neighbouring Afghanistan.

They are also carrying out research, notably on the feasibility of getting troops into Afghanistan. Some of the Americans have gone to Quetta, in southwestern Pakistan, and the Peshewar in the north west. Both cities are close to the border with Afghanistan.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday a team of officials would be arriving in Pakistan this week to follow up on Islamabad's offer to help with anti-terrorism measures. - AFP

Putin also held telephone talks with Turkmenistan President Saparmurad Niyazov to discuss the situation in the region, particularly in relation to Afghanistan where the United States is considering possible air strikes in reprisal for terror attacks in New York and Washington last week.

Turkmenistan borders Afghanistan, whose ruling Taliban movement is sheltering Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, suspected of being behind the attacks.

Rushailo, who was headed first for Kazakhstan, has been charged with meeting leaders in the former Soviet central Asian republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, which also border Afghanistan, and Kyrgyzstan, Interfax said.

He was due to meet Kazakh leaders at Astana later Monday, the agency said, quoting a source in the Kazakh presidential administration. - AFP

"Army forces are on simple alert. There is no movement of troops and troops have not been moved to the borders," a military spokesman told AFP, requesting anonymity.

"Forces available in garrisons are on alert in view of the future situation ... Forces are usually put on alert in such situations."

Pakistani authorities have stepped up security at the main Torkham border checkpoint in the North West frontier Province as hundreds of Afghans continue to try to flee their homeland due to drought and civil war. There have been few indications of Taliban preparations for war, but a heavy machine gun on the Afghan side of the border at Torkham has been trained on the Pakistani checkposts since Sunday, an AFP photographer said.

Pakistani military spokesman Major General Rashid Qureshi denied reports that the borders with Afghanistan had been sealed as part of an "economic blockade". "There is no order regarding the sealing of the Afghan borders as we already don't allow anyone to cross the border without travel documents," he told AFP. A report in the News daily said Pakistan had suspended a key transit trade agreement with land-locked Afghanistan, but this was also dismissed by senior finance ministry officials.

The Taliban have threatened to attack any neighbouring country which assists with a US strike on Afghanistan, a direct warning to its ally Pakistan. Pakistan has promised its full cooperation in Washington's war on terrorism following the September 11 terrorist atrocities in New York and Washington.

Saudi-born extremist Osama bin Laden, hiding in Afghanistan as a guest of the Taliban Islamic militia, is the prime suspect. - AFP