Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist group vowed last night to hijack more planes in its war against the United States.
In an implicit admission that it was responsible for the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, bin Laden's al-Qaeda spokesman, Sulaiman Bu Ghaith, told Qatar's al-Jazeera TV that the battle would not end until the US withdrew from Muslim lands.
"Americans should know...The storm of the (hijacked) planes will not stop," he said.
Referring to those who carried out the attacks, Bu Ghaith said that "they did good by taking the battle into the heart of America" and that America should know such attacks would not end.
His statement fell short of admitting explicitly to any al-Qaeda involvement in the attacks but reiterated bin Laden's praise of the perpetrators in his videotaped remarks broadcast on Sunday.
He suggested that Muslims should target US interests across the world: "US interests are spread everywhere in the world. Every Muslim should carry out his full role... Let America know that this battle will not leave its land until it exits our land, and until they stop supporting the Jews and lift the unjust sanctions on Iraq."
As missile strikes continued last night, the Taliban regime in the Afghan capital, Kabul, remained defiant, claiming their supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and bin Laden, were still alive.
Despite bin Laden's comments, America claimed yesterday to have established air supremacy in Afghanistan, as its forces carried out the first daylight raids since hostilities began.
"We can now carry out air strikes around the clock as we wish," the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, told journalists. Although the Afghans retained some basic anti-aircraft weapons, US planes could employ tactics designed to evade their fire.
Mr Rumsfeld said he had no information on four UN mine clearance workers killed in Tuesday night's raid but expressed his regret. There was no easy way to do what had to be done and it was inevitable there would be "unintended consequences".
The Taliban meanwhile accused the US of "open terrorism" as Washington said the attacks would continue for at least one more day. In Pakistan, four people were killed during pro-Taliban riots. Anti-US disturbances also broke out in Indonesia and Iraq.
There were mixed signals on the diplomatic front as the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, set off for Geneva and the Middle East on another round of visits to shore up international support for the US-led offensive.
The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, said US comments that it reserved the right to extend its campaign against other countries had "caused some anxiety".
In a letter last Sunday to the President of the Security Council - Ireland's UN Ambassador, Mr Richard Ryan - the US envoy, Mr John Negroponte, said: "We may find that our self-defence requires further action with respect to other organisations and other states."
Garda∅ were last night continuing to hold four men, three Lybians and an Algerian, on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda.