The United States unleashed its first daylight bombing raids on Afghanistan yesterday and said it had knocked out almost all airfields there, creating air supremacy to allow a sustained campaign against radical Islamic forces.
As US bombs and missiles rained down for the third day on Afghanistan in reprisal for attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 5,600 people one month ago, authorities appealed for calm in Florida where two cases of anthrax raised fears of possible biological warfare attacks.
At a Pentagon briefing, officials for the first time showed pictures of destroyed airfields, missile sites and training camps used by the al- Qaeda network of the Saudi-militant, Osama bin Laden, blamed by Washington for the September 11th attacks that levelled the World Trade Centre and damaged the Pentagon.
The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, said: "We have struck several terrorist training camps. We have damaged most of the airfields, I believe all but one, as well as their anti-aircraft and launchers ... We believe we are now able to carry out strikes more or less around the clock as we wish."
"Essentially we have air supremacy over Afghanistan," Air Force Gen Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the leading US military man, told the same briefing.
Mr Rumsfeld expressed regret for the deaths of four Afghans who worked for a UN-funded demining group, but said some civilian casualties were inevitable in such a large operation.
On the home front, the Attorney General, Mr John Ashcroft, the chief US law officer, has warned Americans of an increased risk of reprisals by militants as a result of raids on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Islamic purists, who are sheltering bin Laden.
As the US-led war against terrorism continued from the air, Britain, Washington's leading ally in the campaign so far, said ground operations were a possibility.
"As far as any ground operations are concerned, clearly we are preparing plans to allow us to look at that as an option," the British Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, said yesterday.
"We have only just started the very first part of the military campaign, with the attacks that took place overnight on Sunday and Monday," he added.
At his briefing, Mr Rumsfeld said the damage inflicted so far had created "conditions necessary to conduct a sustained campaign to root out terrorists".
The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, told the Afghan people in a targeted radio interview yesterday that the West would not abandon them after the war on the Taliban had been completed.
In a broadcast for the BBC's World Service, Mr Blair conceded the West had made past mistakes on Afghanistan and had simply "walked away" from its people.
"This time round we must not repeat that mistake," he said.
Mr Blair, who set off yesterday for the Middle East on a fresh diplomatic initiative to shore up Arab support for the campaign, was also interviewed on al-Jazeera television, the Qatari broadcaster used by bin Laden, on Sunday.
In his interview, Mr Blair emphasised the necessity of action against terrorism because of his fear of further attacks following the World Trade Centre outrage.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the opposition Northern Alliance (also known as the United Front) said 40 Taliban commanders with 1,200 men under arms had switched sides and closed the only road linking north and south Afghanistan.
Taliban fighters also exchanged gunfire with Pakistani border guards in a remote northwestern border area early yesterday, injuring four of them.
The three-hour battle erupted after Pakistani paramilitary Scouts stopped about 30 Taliban fighters who tried to enter the area, witnesses said.
One of the missiles in the air raids on Afghanistan struck a house in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar once used by Mullah Mohammad Omar, the movement's supreme leader, but he was not there, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan said.
Bin Laden has also escaped unscathed from the attacks, he said.