Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair has promised a relentless campaign to unseat Afghanistan's ruling Taliban as the vanguard of a US-led ground force continues its build up in central Asia.
"I assure you of a complete determination to be successful in this action against the terrorists and the Taliban regime, which we will continue until we are successful," Mr Blair said on a visit to India.
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US Air Force plane with US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld on board lands at Tashkent airport yesterday
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As Mr Blair and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wound up what many observers regarded as a last-minute diplomatic offensive before the expected attacks, 1,000 elite US troops were due to arrive in Uzbekistan.
The 10th Mountain Division left their New York State base yesterday, officials said. Mr Rumsfeld, on a visit to Tashkent, secured the use of an airbase in the former Soviet republic within striking distance of Afghan targets.
35,000 US military personnel, 350 aircraft and three aircraft carrier battle groups are in the region, with support from some British and Australian forces. Commandos are reportedly already in Afghanistan scouting targets.
Mr Blair said in New Delhi he believed there was "the need for Afghanistan to have a stable government with a broad base of ethnic groups. It is important to realise the focus is on dealing with Afghanistan and closing down bin Laden's camps. I hope very much to ensure there is stability in the region, but it must be based on the rule of law," Mr Blair said.
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A US AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter during a training exercise this week. Attack helicopters are expected to play a significant part in any offensive
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Despite US President George W Bush's declaration of a "war on terrorism", all signs point to a first-phase assault using commandos backed with air power - a discreet conflict in a few harsh mountain areas rather than an all-out offensive on the model of the 1991 Gulf War.
"I don't think that the United States is going to have, you know, a massive strike. But this is my personal view," Georgian President Mr Eduard Shevardnadze said Friday after meeting Bush at the White House.
Mr Shevardnadze, who was Soviet foreign minister during Moscow's disastrous 1979-1989 campaign in Afghanistan, signed on to Bush's anti-terror drive, pledging full support and offering the use of Georgian bases and airspace.
Mr Bush's strategy has been presented as a long-term, multi-faceted campaign that, apart from military strikes, would also involve financially strangling identified terrorist organisations and pooling intelligence from other countries and between US agencies to thwart plots.
The delay in US strikes has been put down to the complexity of the task - of fighting a shadowy, amorphous network of terrorist groups and locating bin Laden - as well as the risk that they might trigger other terror attacks.
US authorities are particularly worried over the potential for cropdusting aircraft and trucks to be used in biological or chemical assaults on targets in the United States.
With US unemployment since the attacks climbing to a nine-year high, Bush on Friday called for Congress to push through a 60-billion-dollar tax cut to encourage Americans to spend their way out of what is starting to look like a sudden and deep recession.
Meanwhile, some cracks appeared in US plans to create a unified, international front to back its new policies, most notably when the UN General Assembly wound up five days of debate on terrorism without agreeing on a draft resolution on the topic.
Much of the problem was the inability of the 189 member states to concur on a definition of who, exactly, was a terrorist.
That in part stemmed from a feeling among some countries, particularly Arab ones, that the Palestinian fight against Israeli occupation should not be branded with the terrorism brush.
The whole Israel-Palestinian issue got politically hotter Friday when Washington berated Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for accusing the West of thinking about appeasing the Arabs in the same way it appeased Adolf Hitler by allowing Nazi Germany to occupy Czechoslovakia.
Mr Sharon's officials tried to downplay the comments Saturday in a bid to mend fences with Washington.
The United States's relationship with Israel has been placed under strain by its need to woo Arab support for its planned strike on Afghanistan and avoid the danger of inflaming Muslim opinion.
AFP