The US has launched a second night of missile attacks on targets in Afghanistan, in a developing war against terrorism which a senior US official said could last for years. The Taliban regime warned of untold consequences for the attacks and US cities took further security measures against possible reprisals.
Speculation that military action could extend eventually to other longtime enemies of the US, such as Iraq, was heightened by a statement from the US envoy at the United Nations, Mr John Negroponte.
In a letter to the current president of the Security Council, Ireland's UN Ambassador Mr Richard Ryan, he said: "We may find that our self-defence requires further actions with respect to other organisations and other states."
The air raids concentrated initially on Kandahar, main base of the Taliban, Jalalabad and the capital Kabul. They were carried out by ten land-based bombers, B1s and B2s, and 10 strike planes from aircraft carriers. Some submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles were also used. In all three cities there were reports of sporadic anti-aircraft fire in response.
The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld said it was the start of a long counter-terrorist campaign: "These strikes are part of a much larger effort against worldwide terrorism, that will be sustained and which is wide-ranging. It will likely be sustained for a period of years, not weeks or months."
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen and his European Union counterparts issued a strong statement after a meeting in Luxembourg, declaring "wholehearted support" for the action the US was taking "in self-defence and in conformity with the UN Charter".
Warning of a backlash, the Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan told a news conference in Islamabad: "To the best of my knowledge the consequences are very severe and they are so severe that no one can determine it." He added that, "If the Americans irrationally think that they can benefit from this attack I think they have made the wrong assumption. They will come out of this unsuccessful".
Demonstrators took to the streets of several Pakistani cities. The worst violence was in the western city of Quetta, where one person died as between 10,000 and 15,000 radical students and members of hardline Islamic groups burned down cinemas, a police and fire station, a shopping plaza and a UNICEF building. Chanting "Down with America", the crowds smashed the windscreens of parked cars and threw stones at police, who responded with tear gas.
Two Palestinians were shot dead during clashes with Palestinian Authority police in the Gaza Strip as thousands demonstrated there and in the West Bank in support of the suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden after the US-led strikes.
A third Palestinian, wounded at the same time, was clinically dead on life support, doctors said.
President Bush, who swore in his new Office of Homeland Security chief, Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, declared that, "On all efforts, on all fronts, we're going to be ongoing and relentless as we tighten the net of justice". Thousands of additional armed police and National Guard troops patrolled New York and other major US cities.
On a diplomatic level, doubts were growing about the viability of the Northern Alliance as a vehicle for replacing the Taliban as rulers of Afghanistan. Pakistan's military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf described the opposition as a discredited force.
"We know the atrocities that were committed between the period when the Soviets left (Afghanistan) and before the Taliban came, when there were warlords butchering each other.
"I have heard stories that are hair-raising. The Northern Alliance must be kept in check to so we don't return to anarchy," he said.
The British journalist, Ms Yvonne Ridley has been released after being held for 10 days by the Taliban. The Sunday Express reporter was escorted to the Pakistan border.