ISLAMABAD, Oct 20 (UNI): There are between 10,000 to 13,000 Islamic militants, half of them Arabs, in Afghanistan at present with Saudi born terrorist Osama bin Laden, ready to fight "jehad" against the United States.
These hardcore militants are "tough, zealous and aggressively anti-west" and are defending various Afghan areas following desertion by members of the Taliban militia.
The militants are preparing to defend the city of Jalalabad, seat of the Taliban government as well as home to Osama bin Laden against the possible US ground attack, the daily news said quoting several Taliban commanders who escaped to Pakistan.
One of the Taliban commander Malik Sherzad Khan that about 1800 militants from various Arab countries, Chechnya, Kashmir and Pakistan escaped the US bombing on Al-Qaida bases in Jalalabad as they live scattered around the city and shift their shelters every night.
The militants live in mountains, in isolated training camps and keep to themselves.
Before the bombing on Afghanistan started, there were very few terrorists in Jalalabad.
But after October seven bombing, the Talibans brought them to the city to defend it.
There is a camp near Jalalabad called "melawa tora bora", which the jehadis used.
But it was later taken over by Osama bin Laden and his associates.
It was a well known Osama bin Laden camp, but when the Americans attacked, not a single person was inside it.
The 1800 Al Qaida terrorists, now in Jalalabad, have 180 pick up trucks at their disposal to move around to new places.
They live in small groups and not in large camps.
The Taliban forces are also dispersed and mobile and live under bridges and trees.
Among the Arabs in Jalalabad were some militants, who came from Germany where several Ladens associates were based, the report said.
Senior US official heads for Pak, India WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) A senior United States official will visit Pakistan next week to discuss economic rewards for its assistance in the US-led military campaign against Osama bin Ladens Al Qaeda group, a State department spokesman has said.
Alan Larson, under secretary of state for economic affairs, will go on to India after Pakistan, his spokesman Phillip Reeker said yesterday.
Pakistan has already won an end to many US sanctions in return for letting US planes fly over and land on its territory to attack Afghanistan.
Reeker said Larsons trip would follow up on US Secretary of State Colin Powells visit to Islamabad earlier this week and a visit to Washington by Pakistani Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz.
"Hes also going to visit India, where he will talk about an Indo-US Economic dialogue, investment, trade issues and the WTO (World Trade Organization) meeting," he added.
The WTO meeting is scheduled for next month in Qatar.
The US House of Representatives rewarded Pakistan for its support against Al Qaeda on Tuesday when it gave final approval to a measure authorizing the waiver of sanctions for two years.
It was the latest in a series of steps designed to promote relations with Pakistan since the Sept.
11 attacks on New York and Washington, blamed on bin Laden and his network of guerrillas.
It cleared the way for an expected 600 million dollar economic assistance package for Islamabad, which would include 100 million dollar in aid announced by President George W.
Bush has already used an executive order to lift sanctions imposed on Pakistan after its 1998 nuclear tests.
Those sanctions severely limited the governments ability to provide bilateral assistance to Pakistan beyond Humanitarian aid.
Russia, China want fast Afghan political deal SHANGHAI, Oct 20 (Reuters): The leaders of Russia and China want the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan to end as soon as possible and to move to a political settlement, Russian president Vladimir Putins spokesman said today.
Alexei Gromov told reporters after Putin had met Chinese President Jiang Zemin the two leaders want a government formed in Afghanistan "under the aegis of the United Nations and with ethnic groups which are ready to go back to peace".
"The leaders want an end to the military phase and to move to a political settlement as soon as possible," Gromov said.
The US-led campaign against targets in Afghanistan was sparked by suicide air attacks on the United States on September 11.
Special forces hold key to phase two LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters): The start of ground operations in Afghanistan marks a crucial escalation from the initial US-led air campaign and risks casualties among the elite special forces that are spearheading the assault.
Despite laser-guided bombs that claim pinpoint accuracy and surveillance satellites that can read a newspaper headline from the edge of space, military experts believe only special forces on the ground can hunt down Osama bin Laden.
Military officials in Washington and London have refused to discuss the special forces operations in any detail, but have made clear they expect a dirty fight in which western soldiers could die.
Special forces expected to take the lead role in Afghanistan are the US Delta Force formed in 1977 and the British Special Air Service regiment which grew out of covert desert warfare in World War Two.
While British special forces troops number in the hundreds, the United States has nearly 50,000, including Rangers and the Green Berets.
Small teams would be used as "Snatch Squads" operating at close quarters with the Taliban or bin Ladens Al Qaeda network, military experts say.
They can also conceal themselves in observation hides, use motion sensors to detect the presence of enemy forces and call in air strikes using satellite communications technology.
British special forces have experience of this kind of war against the IRA in Northern Ireland, Argentine forces in the Falklands in 1982 and the Iraqis in the 1991 Gulf War.
They are trained to leave no trace of their presence, even to the extent of wrapping their excrement in plastic bags and carrying it away in their backpacks.
"Force protection",or watching the backs of the advance troops would be provided by bigger units.
The US 10th mountain division now based in neighbouring Uzbekistan could be used to secure an Afghan airfield as a forward operating base.
Other US special forces are on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, which has been steaming to the Arabian Sea, from where they could reach Afghanistan by helicopter.
US officials have confirmed the presence in Afghanistan of small numbers of elite special operations troops, while in Britain there have been persistent reports that members of the SAs have been there for some time.
"As the prime minister himself said we have always recognised that this campaign would not be conducted from the air alone," a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said.
The first phase of the ground operation is likely to involve an attempt to divide Afghanistans Taliban rulers with a psychological operations campaign running alongside continued military action, analysts believe.
In that respect, coalition special forces are playing a role that would be recognised by young British officers sent to forge alliances with rival warlords more than 100 years ago as Britain and Russia fought the "Great Game" for control of Afghanistan.
It is important for the coalition allies to be able to make life difficult for the Taliban and bin Laden without uniting the Afghan people behind their leaders, as occurred after the 1979 soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
US radio broadcaststo Afghanistan already seem designed to incite local resistance to the Taliban.
The consequences of failure are dire, according to Tom Carew, a British special forces veteran who spent time training Afghan fighters to resist Soviet forces by making use of their countrys hostile terrain.
"They are really ferocious.
As an enemy they are your worst nightmare," he said.
"That terrain is like a natural fortress." And that Terrain is likely to become a lot more hostile in coming weeks, as the bitter winter sets in, bringing heavy snows and temperatures as low as -40 celsius (-40f).
Britains top military man, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, has indicated that winter could halt hostilities until spring.
"Everybody knows that the weather in a few weeks time in Afghanistan will be particularly difficult," British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said.
But military experts point out that special forces receive winter training and say their thermal imaging night vision goggles, which could give them an edge over the poorly equipped Taliban fighters, work better in cold weather.
Powells Pak trip had extraordinary security SHANGHAI, Oct 20 (Reuters) Washington had played down fears for USsecretary of state Colin Powells safety on his trip to Pakistan, where there have been violent anti-US protests against the bombardment of neighbouring Afghanistan.
But the people who flew him in and out of Islamabad this week were taking no chances, eyes peeled for the flash of a heat-seeking missile , just in case an anti-American militant outwitted massive security to launch one from his shoulder.
"If you are talking about physical danger to secretary Powell, he was 35 years a soldier.
I dont think thats going to deter him," deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage told reporters before Powell left home on Sunday on a regional trip.
Powell led US forces in the Gulf war, his helicopter was shot down in Vietnam and he once stood on a poisoned booby trap stick ,so maybe venturing to Islamabad was small fry to him.
But he may have been one of an elite group of passengers without sweaty palms when the voice from the cockpit made clear the landing in the Pakistani capital would be no ordinary one.
"We are starting an immediate descent," the voice said before the plane took a plunge and began a slow, low and near-silent approach to the airport which turned out to be crawling with grim-faced guards armed with a variety of guns.
The plane had sunk with ear-popping speed from 30,000 to 8,000 feet in less than two minutes.
Passengers, including the small group of reporters who accompany Powell on his trips, were instructed to keep their window shades shut even though the cabin was barely lit.
Pakistan has allied itself with Washington over its "war on terrorism" but US diplomats are all too aware that Afghanistans ruling taliban has surface-to-air missiles.
Afghanistan is under attack for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network, suspected of conducting the US attacks on September 11 that killed more than 5,000 people.
The diplomats probably also know that guards who patrol Pakistans 3,500 km (1,500 mile) Afghan border are in league with smugglers who import everything from opium to crockery.
Maybe a surface-to-air missile had found its way across the boundary 150 kms (85 miles) away.
People on the ground said they hardly heard Powells gleaming blue and white plane came in, emblazoned with the words "United States of America" in huge black letters.
It banked oddly as the pilot sought the runway, whose lights stayed out until shortly before touchdown, witnesses said.
The next day Powell took off in daylight , but only after the pilot faked two take-offs , heading towards an Asia-pacific gathering in Shanghai, and presumably heaving a sigh of relief once he hit 10,000 feet, out of range of missiles.
With the phone to the cockpit pressed to his ear, a crew member kept look-out on one side of the aircraft while a diplomatic security agent kept watch out the other.
But Powell presumably did not flinch.
"I feel quite safe," he had said firmly on the way in.
Powerful Afghan minister vows long guerilla war ISLAMABAD, Oct 20 (Reuters) One of the Talibans most powerful ministers, accused of "ethnic cleansing" in the past, warned during a mysterious visit to Pakistan of a long Guerilla war if US troops invade Afghanistan, a newspaper reported today.
Jalaluddin Haqqani, the man responsible for tribal affairs in a country divided along ethnic lines, was speaking hours before the United States announced on Saturday that its troops had launched a lightning in-and-out raid into Afghanistan.
"We will retreat to the mountains and begin a long Guerrilla war to reclaim our pure land from infidels and free our country like we did against the Soviets," Haqqani was quoted as saying in the news.
"We are eagerly awaiting the American troops to land on our soil, where we will deal with them in our own way.The Americans are creatures of comfort.
They will not be able to sustain the harsh conditions that await them," said Haqqani.
A veteran Mujahideen, or holy warrior, Haqqani belonged to a splinter faction of the hardline Hezb-i-Islami group before switching sides to the Taliban as they swept into the capital, Kabul, in 1996.
Haqqanis visit to Pakistan came amid rumours of splits inside the Taliban but he said the ruling movement, which has been intent on creating the worlds purest Islamic state, had lost no leaders ,either through the US bombing or from defections.
"There is absolutely no truth in such claims," said Haqqani, who arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday and visited Islamabad yesterday.
It was not known if he had met any officials or what the reason for his trip was, or if there would be any reaction from the United States because a high-ranking Taliban official was apparently able to move freely inside Pakistan, Washingtons ally in the fight against the Taliban.
"Let me state clearly that Osama bin Laden is not only safe and sound, he is also in good spirits," said Haqqani of the man wanted for the September 11 suicide plane attacks on the United States and living in Afghanistan under Taliban protection.
Haqqani first won recognition as a rugged commander battling soviet troops in the 1980s and his specialty was cave fighting in Afghanistans vast inhospitable mountain ranges.
The most prominent Mujahideen commander to join the Taliban, Haqqani is considered a weathervane for tribal feelings about the hardline ruling movement.
he commanded troops around the key eastern garrison town of Khost, near the Pakistan border, and controlled a nearly unassailable base in caves there that later became a training ground for Osama bin Ladens Al Qaeda network.
The United States has launched the raids on Afghanistan to punish the Taliban for refusing to hand over bin Laden, the prime suspect in the attacks last month on New York and Washington.
The United States has claimed its air strikes have given it air superiority over Afghanistan, but Haqqani disputed that, saying the non-stop raids for two weeks have not seriously cut into the Talibans military capability.
"The military strikes have miserably failed to inflict any serious or crippling damage to our defences," he said, adding that 450 Afghans had been killed "in the cowardly American strikes".
Haqqani was named justice minister in the first Mujahideen government formed in Kabul in 1992 but defected to the Taliban just as the fundamentalist movement seized the capital in September 1996.
He led the Talibans military campaign north of Kabul that winter, sweeping so ruthlessly through the towns of Istalef and Karabagh that his opponents accused him of "ethnic cleansing" of the Tajik minority there.
In 1998, he switched to the post of tribal affairs minister, a sign of the powerful position he had in the eastern tribal belt bordering on Pakistan.
According to Janes intelligence review, Haqqani has close ties to bin Laden and his forces controlled access to an Al Qaeda training camp called Al-Badri in the mountains around Khost, where up to 2,500 muslims from Arab countries, Philippines, China and other states were trained.
Afghan experts said his trip to Islamabad at such a time was highly unusual and said the tribal elder from the majority Pashtun group may have been visiting as part of manoeuvres to ensure he has a role in a future administration.
"He is a moderate and he may also want to start negotiations to ensure that he has a role in any future government," said one Afghan analyst.
The analyst that it was significant that in 13 days of US bombing, the raids had not targeted the camps in Khost province, which is part of Haqqanis powerbase.
These camps were hit by cruise missiles when Washington launched its first strikes against bin Laden in 1998 after the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
End of Taliban means rise in opium production: UNDCP ISLAMABAD, Oct 20 (Reuters) The destruction of Afghanistans ruling Taliban will almost certainly trigger a rise in opium production, the UN drug control programme said.
The warning from Bernard Frahi, head of the UNDCP office for southwest Asia, came only two days after the programme put out an annual report showing a dramatic fall in production over the past year because of a rigid Taliban ban on growing opium poppies.
"We have been told that farmers are resuming poppy cultivation in several areas," Frahi told Reuters yesterday, listing regions that are in the Taliban-held part of Afghanistan where US and British planes began bombing on October 7.
"Fields are being prepared for the planting which starts in mid-October, so it started yesterday, and continues until the end of November," said the French narcotics expert.
The harvest is in April and May.
Frahi attributed renewed cultivation mainly to farmers expectations that the Taliban administration, busy fighting for its existence against US attacks, will not be able to enforce its ban on poppy cultivation.
In addition, Frahi warned that the cut-off of outside sources of funds for the Taliban and the Al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden ,chief suspect in the September 11 attacks on the United States ,could drive them into partnership with drug smugglers.
"Terrorist groups inside Afghanistan dont have any funding anymore so of course they will look for immediate funding.
What would be the best thing to smuggle today?" Frahi said.
"We might see a convergence between the clandestine networks for trafficking and terrorism." Frahi said it was impossible to estimate the rise in production because the UNDCP has been unable to monitor what is happening in Afghanistan since all foreign staff were evacuated following the September attacks on New York and Washington.
But their programme had enjoyed its most dramatic success in the past year, thanks to a decree by Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in July 2000 banning opium cultivation.
At first dismissed by Washington, the Taliban ban was firmly enforced and UNDCP teams that surveyed the country this year expressed amazement at the conversion of fields from lucrative poppies to wheat.
In contrast, production of poppies, which are turned into opium and eventually heroin, soared in the small northeastern area of Afghanistan controlled by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.
Overall production in Afghanistan, which had been the worlds largest producer, dropped 94 percent in one year , to an estimated 185 tonnes compared to 3,276 tonnes in 2000.
Frahi said the fall in production last crop year had not translated into a reduction in supply or a rise in heroin prices on the streets of Europe, where most Afghan opium production has headed, because of stocks left from previous years.
However, he was sceptical of western charges that the Taliban themselves were trafficking in drugs, saying old stocks had been held by everyone along the supply chain from farmers, to local buyers, to the smugglers who send it out of the country.
"If the Taliban had organised the drug trafficking, they would have kept the production," said Frahi, a former lawyer who spent 10 years with french narcotics police.
In an endorsement of the cooperation the United Nations has received from the Taliban, Frahi said control of future Afghan opium production would depend on which government succeeds the Taliban.
Border region chaos as 60,000 Afghans seek refuge in Pak GENEVA, Oct 20 (DPA) A total of more than 60,000 Afghans refugees are now in Pakistan seeking food and refuge, United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said.
Spokesman Ron Redmond said yesterday in Geneva that many had left their villages in apparent panic and arrived at the border with neither food nor personal belongings.
Some had paid smugglers to be taken on a 15-hour route march through mountain passes to Pakistan, he said.
More than 3,500 crossed yesterday morning in the Kandahar region into Pakistan at the chaman border crossing, redmond said.
Monitors describe the situation there are "chaotic".
About 10,000 refugees have flooded into Baluchistan province alone over the past six days, he said.
UN aid organisation workers meanwhile report that radical Taliban militia are increasingly occupying depots containing aid items.
Plundering was also said to be increasing.
UN staff also say international promises of donations have not been fulfilled.
The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said the deficit is 93 million dollars this month.
A total of 77 per cent of 654 million dollars in pledged aid funds had still not been paid, it said.
The World Food Programme (EFP) called on Taliban militia to allow WFP workers access to a depot in Kandahar containing 1,600 tons of food.
In Kunduz, Taliban militia have sealed a storehouse of the Onternational Organization for Migration (IOM) containing urgently needed blankets and winter clothing and are preventing the items from being distributed, the IOM said.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that one of its offices had been plundered and a car plus bureau equipment had been stolen.
Northern Afghan city was Taliban graveyard before KHOJA BAHAWUDDIN, (AFGHANISTAN), Oct 20 (Reuters) It is a city where Taliban blood has flowed, and one where their blood may flow again if the opposition Northern Alliance can advance on the strategic Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Northern Alliance now have Mazar-i-Sharif in their sights, and the ancient city matters because it is important not only for its carpets and mosques but because it stands on the main route south to the capital, Kabul.
The key market town for the farmlands stretching toward the Amu daryu river , the oxus of the ancients , was the site of the worst defeat the militiamen of the fundamentalist Islamic movement have so far suffered, a graveyard for thousands.
Opposition forces plan to surround Mazar-i-Sharif and squeeze the Taliban fighters that control it into surrender, a senior commander said yesterday.
Ustad Attah, one of three commanders trying to recapture the strategic northern town, told Reuters by satellite telephone that he hoped Mazar-i-Sharif would be encircled within a few days.
Attah said eight US personnel, apparently on an intelligence or reconnaissance mission, had been with fellow opposition commander general Abdul Rashid Dostum for several days.
The opposition were only about five KM (three miles) away from Mazars airport.
Although there were conflicting versions of the fighting, presenting a picture of EBB and flow of battle rather than a clear opposition advance, the presence of opposition forces openly challenging for Mazar-i-Sharif means the Talibans position has deteriorated.
Since 1998, the Taliban had had firm control of the city, which sits astride the main road over the Hindu Kush and through the salang pass to Kabul 430 km (270 miles) away.
But that control had been won at a heavy price.
The Taliban first captured the city in 1997, a year after capturing Kabul and three years after emerging from obscurity in southern Kandahar through the treachery of a Dostum ally.
But thousands of Taliban troops were killed when their heavy-handed treatment of the local population triggered a revolt and the opposition drove them from the city.
Prisoners were summarily shot, or in some cases left to die in old shipping containers or thrown alive down wells that were then bulldozed over.
Every time there are reports of Taliban atrocities, the Taliban cite the mass executions of their troops by opposition leaders in Mazar-i-Sharif.
The same underlying ethnic tensions will be on their minds now as their hold on the city is challenged.
The Taliban are predominantly Pashtun tribesmen from the south of the country, frequently unfamiliar with the area as well as the local languages and traditions.
Mazar-i-Sharif is in the heart of Uzbek and Turkmen populations , groups that back the Northern Alliance.
The battle-hardened dostum is an Uzbek.
The city itself, like all Afghan cities after more than two decades of war, is decidedly rundown.
The streets are potholed and as dark falls the people light oil lamps or, for the richer, start their own generators.
The Taliban who roam the streets with their AK-47s have always been edgy, but visitors to Mazar-i-Sharif this year noted the rising tension as they proved unable to follow up advances made a year ago against the last opposition forces holding northeastern Afghanistan.
The city has a relatively recent history as a major centre, becoming the provincial capital of Afghan Turkestan in 1866.
But the nearby city it replaced as capital, Balkh, is one of the most ancient in central Asia.
Balkh, named the mother of cities and only 18 km (11 miles) from Mazar-i-Sharif, was a centre of Zoroastrian study centuries before Alexander the great made it is his base for the conquest of the region in 329 B.C.
Mazar-i-Sharifs claim to fame rests on the blue-tiled shrine of Hazrat Ali, honouring the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad.
It was a centre of pilgrimage while still a village.
Legend says the body of Ali was placed on a camel to prevent its desecration by his enemies following his killing in 661.
The camel wandered until its death, and Ali was buried on the spot.
Only at the beginning of the 11th century did a Mullah have a dream revealing that the grave was at Mazar-i-Sharif.
A Seljuk Sultan erected the first shrine in 1136, but it was destroyed in the same devastation visited upon Balkh and the rest of Afghanistan by Genghis Khan a century later.
Today the shrine, rebuilt by the timurid rulers in the 15th century and extensively redecorated over the years, is firmly closed to non-Muslims.
The Taliban, who want to impose an Austere Arabian interpretation of Islam, have an intense dislike of shrines and the ancient festivals that were celebrated at the shrine of Hazrat Ali.
Its another reminder of their roots elsewhere in Afghanistan.
US asks Japan to send military to Indian Ocean TOKYO, Oct 20 (Reuters) The United States has asked Japan to send its military to provide non-combat logistical support for US,led retaliation against the September 11 attacks, Japanese media said today.
Washington requested that Japans self defence force vessels be sent to the Indian ocean to carry fuel and other supplies to US vessels operating in the area, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported.
The Japanese government is planning to accept the request, it said.
Japanese leaders are keen to avoid a rerun of Japans 1991 diplomatic embarrassment when it was criticised for declining to commit even a token force to the Gulf war.
But analysts have cautioned that any move by Japan to boost its military role could stir controversy in Asia because of the countrys past imperialism.
The newspaper report also said that Japan was considering sending aegis-class destroyers to accompany the vessels carrying supplies and to take part in intelligence activities.
On Thursday, Japans lower house of parliament approved a bill allowing Japans military to provide non-combat support, clearing the way for enactment of the controversial legislation later this month.
The bill clarifies the role Japans military could play in US,led operations without violating the nations pacifist constitution.
Under the current law, Japan cannot engage in any type of military action unless it is threatened or attacked directly.
But under the new legislation, effective for two years and extendable for up to two more years, Japan could dispatch military forces to provide rearguard logistical support, such as medical services and provision of supplies, as well as humanitarian aid for refugees.
Successive governments have interpreted the constitution as banning collective self-defence, or aiding allies when they are attacked.
Crashed US copter came down near airbase QUETTA, (PAKISTAN), Oct 20 (Reuters) A US helicopter, which crashed overnight on a support operation in Pakistan came down near the southwestern airbase of Dalbandin, a local official said today.
"It has fallen in the Dalbandin area," said the local official, who declined to be further identified.
Dalbandin is 60 km (37 miles) from the Afghan border.
The US military said the helicopter crashed on a support operation in Pakistan, killing two people.
Aghanistans ruling Taliban say they shot down a helicopter in a lightning US commando raid on their soil overnight.
Taliban claim General Dostum killed NICOSIA, Oct 20 (DPA) Northern Alliance commander Abdul Rashid Dostum was killed in fighting against Taliban troops in Afghanistan, the Doha-based Al-Jazeera television channel reported today morning.
The broadcast, monitored in Cyprus, quoted a field commander of the Taliban militia as saying the powerful Uzbek General was killed in a clash with Taliban forces in the north of Afghanistan.
There was no independent confirmation for the claim.
Dostum was a co-founder of the Northern Alliance, which has been battling Taliban for control of Afghanistan.
The Alliance is drawn mainly from Afghanistans Uzbek and Tajik minorities in the north.
Dostum is a former Soviet militia leader trained in the USSR who switched sides after the withdrawal of the Red army from Afghanistan in 1989.
Northern Alliance deny Taliban claim about Dostum ISLAMABAD, Oct 20 (DPA) An opposition Northern Alliance spokesman today denied reports that the Uzbek commander Abdul Rashid Dostum had been killed in fighting against Taliban troops in Afghanistan.
"As far as we know Dostum is still very much in Darre Sauf in the Northern Samangan province," Commander Najib, a spokesman for the Alliance told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, DPA from a base in the far Northern Takhar province.
The Doha-based Al-jazeera television channel had reported this morning that Dostum had been killed during hostilities.
The broadcast, monitored in Cyprus, quoted a field commander of the Taliban militia as saying the powerful Uzbek general was killed in a clash with Taliban forces in the north of Afghanistan.
There was no independent confirmation for the claim.
Dostum was a co-founder of of the Northern Alliance, which has been battling taliban for control of afghanistan.
The Alliance is drawn mainly from Afghanistans Uzbek and Tajik minorities in the North.
Dostum is a former Soviet militia leader trained in the USSR who switched sides after the withdrawal of the Red army from Afghanistan in 1989.
No sign of US ground forces : Taliban KABUL, Oct 19 (Reuters) An official of Afghanistans ruling Taliban today said the movement had heard no reports of US special forces or ground troops on Afghan soil in districts under their control.
"I contacted all military people in charge about the report and they told me there is no sign or evidence of their presence in the territories under the control of the Islamic Emirate," Abdul Hanan Himat, an information ministry official told Reuters.
In Washington, a US defence official said small numbers of US special forces were on the ground in Afghanistan.
US special forces enter Afghanistan-Washington Post WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) US special forces have started operations in Afghanistan, signaling the start of the ground war phase of Washingtons attack on global terrorism, the Washington post reported today.
The newspaper, quoting defence officials, said "small numbers of Special Forces were on the ground in southern Afghanistan.
"The number of US Personnel on the ground is just a handful now and is unlikely to ever resemble the large conventional forces assembled in the Persian Gulf War a decade ago, defence officials said," the newspaper reported.
Al Qaeda top lieutenants not among dead : US WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) Members of Osama bin Ladens Al Qaeda network have been killed by US military operations in Afghanistan, but there is no evidence the Saudi-born militant or his top lieutenants were among them, US sources has said.
"There have been some Al Qaeda members who have died," since the US bombing campaign started on October.
7, one official said yesterday on condition of anonymity.
US sources told Reuters there is no evidence that bin Laden or his top lieutenants Ayman Zawahri, Muhammad Atif, and Abu Zubaydah are dead.
Zawahri is one of bin Ladens top lieutenants and a leader of Egypts Islamic jihad who once was tried in Egypt and jailed for three years for his part in the 1981 assassination of president Anwar Sadat.
Aside from members of Al Qaeda, US officials have said previously that two family members of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar were killed on the first night of raids.
US Defense Secretary,Donald Rumsfeld earlier on Thursday said it was possible a senior Al Qaeda official might have been killed in US air strikes in Afghanistan, but said he could not confirm this absolutely.
"Is it accurate that a senior lieutenant of Al Qaeda might have been killed? Yes," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing.
"It might have happened.
Do I know it of certain knowledge? No, Ive not been on the ground.
But it would be a good thing for the world." The United States has blamed bin Laden and his network for orchestrating the Sept.
11 suicide hijack attacks that killed nearly 5,400 people when planes were crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon near Washington and a field in Pennsylvania.
The US sources would not reveal where in Afghanistan the Al Qaeda members had been killed or by what specific weapon.
Low-flying gunships The US military this week began using low-flying AC-130 gunships equipped with 105mm cannons and rapid-fire machine guns that slowly circle an area looking for moving targets.
As the Talibans air defenses have been worn down, US air forces have engaged in closer-range operations and defense officials say they have put Al Qaeda on the run.
Members of the extremist network are using civilian areas and mosques as cover, Rumsfeld said.
"There is no question but that the Al Qaeda and the Taliban are using mosques," Rumsfeld told reporters after meeting with the Italian Defense Minister.
"Theyre using heavily populated areas for their command and control, and for their gathering places purposely because they know that we are a country that tries to avoid high collateral damage targets and have in the past and will in the future," he said.
"So they do take advantage of that.
In fact we see snippets of information where they are saying that to each other," he said.
Pak intelligence minimising support for Osama ISLAMABAD, Oct 19 (UNI) Pakistan Intelligence Agencies have reported an initial breakthrough in their efforts to minimise support for Mulla Muhammad Omar and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, the news reported today.
The breakthrough is reported within the Taliban administration as well as for the pro-Taliban campaign by religious parties in Pakistan, the newspaper said.
The report said senior Pakistani security officials have been holding extensive background meetings with top religious leaders of Pakistan to convince them that the decision to support the US was taken by Gen Pervez Musharraf was in the best interest of the country.
Pakistani officials are also working with Afghan elements to encourage an anti-Mulla Omar group in Taliban, it added.
The officials said that they had made substantial progress on both counts.
The newspaper quoted the sources as saying that a premier secret service achieved breakthrough on both issues last week when an important Pakistani religious leader, who also runs one of the largest religious seminaries in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), secretly agreed with the secret service to use his influence with Taliban ministers and officials to adopt a more moderate course.
"He enjoys great influence over Taliban because thousands of them had graduated from his seminary.
He personally knows several Taliban ministers," an official said.
"His message to Taliban is that the battle to save Osama is not a battle for Islam." The same religious scholar , who is also an important leader of a coalition of religious parties and groups now leading pro-Taliban and pro-Osama rallies and protest marches all over the country has also agreed to be less active in the groups pro-Taliban activities in future, the paper said.
The religious leader, now providing an active support to the government, has, nevertheless, stressed that because of the sensitive nature of the issue, he wouldnt make any public commitment about his efforts to dissect the Taliban movement from Mulla Omar and Al-Qaida group, it added.
As the religious leader re-energised his contacts with the Taliban political and military leadership, Pakistan president Gen Pervez Musharraf was informed by his security aides on Wednesday that a small group of senior Taliban officials , willing to abandon Mulla Omar to join a new broad-based government in Afghanistan ,had contacted Pakistani officials in Peshawar, a senior Pakistani official said.
It was, however, not known if the religious leader from NWFP had any role in this latest development, but officials were quick to describe it as "a significant breakthrough", the paper said.
Pakistani sources said that messages from at least two Taliban ministers had confirmed earlier reports that a major Taliban group was gearing to break ranks with Mulla Omar.
"There is a stream of messages from important Taliban political and military officials from various Afghan cities, but the latest communication from two Taliban ministers is most credible and significant," confirmed an official.
The paper reported Pakistani officials as saying that the Taliban ministers sent their messages through intermediaries who had been shuttling through safer road passages between Kandahar and Quetta and between Jalalabad and Peshawer.
Afghanistans consul general in Karachi Rehmatullah Kakazada has strongly denied the reports about defection of any Taliban ministers, the paper said.
"Mr Kakazada said that reports about disunity in the Taliban government were part of a misinformation campaign," it added.
While Pakistani officials work closely with international forces, including the United Nations, to encourage anti-Mulla Omar and Al-Qaeda group in the present Taliban regime, they are also working separately to renew their contacts with former Pashtun Mujahideen commanders who had earned name in Jihad against the Soviet forces, the news report said.
"Some of these Mujahideen commanders hate Taliban because of the disrespect they had for heroes of Jihad against Soviet Union," a Pakistani source said, hoping that at least a few of the former Mujahideen commanders might not like Northern Alliance or Zahir Shah taking over Kabul but they would definitely like to see an instant downfall of Mulla Omar.
The officials in their background interviews acknowledged that the recent Afghanistan-related activities in the secret services of the country were directly linked to the intelligence cooperation that Pakistan had committed with the US soon after the September 11 incident, the paper said.
"We are in the process of setting the rules of the games.
It is crucial to designate the duties so there is no confusion once the operation gets going," informed an official familiar with the recent Pak-US intelligence interaction in Islamabad.
During its eight-year-long war against the USSR, Afghanistan had been provided with financial, intelligence and propaganda support by the US and its allies, while the ISI handled the operational side with strict control on monetary disbursement.
"Pakistan, like the previous Afghan operation, would like to keep a firm grip over the political operation," a senior official said, adding that, "it means that no foreign intelligence activity on Afghanistan would take place in Pakistan without our complete knowledge." Musharraf likely to visit US next month ISLAMABAD, Oct 19 (UNI) Pakistan president Gen Pervez Musharraf is likely to visit Washington early next month, though the key purpose of his visit would be to attend the United Nations general assembly session in New York, the news reported today, quoting a senior official.
"UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has invited president Musharraf to attend the UNGA session," said the official.
He said no decision about visiting New York or Washington had yet been taken.
"I think the matter will be decided soon," he added.
The newspaper reported that if Mr Musharraf decides to visit New York early November, there would be chances that he would also visit Washington for meeting president George W bush.
"We cannot confirm or deny it, as things are moving fast and there exists a possibility of a Pak-US summit," said the official.
As the two countries are working closely against terrorism, many senior officials see Gen Musharraf visiting Washington, besides attending the UNGA session, the paper said.
If the president travels to New York, there could be a possibility of his meeting with Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was invited by him for pushing forward the Agra peace process in his recent telephonic talk, it added.
US secretary of state Colin Powell announced in New Delhi that president Bush had invited the Indian prime minister for talks in Washington on November 9.
Mr Vajpayee is scheduled to address the UNGA on November 10.
Secretary Powell was in Pakistan before he visited New Delhi and China.
His meeting in Islamabad with Gen Musharraf was to strengthen the anti-Osama and anti-Taliban alliance.
Iran key to avoid clash of civilizations : UN envoy WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) More than any other country, Iran is in a position to help prevent a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the rest of the world and seems inclined to do so, according to a UN envoy.
"Iran is potentially in a position to make a major contribution to avoid this clash of civilizations" that some fear is developing after the September 11 attacks on the United States, GiandoMenico Picco said yesterday.
Picco, a special envoy to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan for a "dialogue among civilizations" program, said he was not speaking in an official capacity.
He was a senior UN official a decade ago and negotiated the release of western hostages in Lebanon.
He told the atlantic council, a trans-atlantic group promoting a new US relationship with Iran, that Iranian leaders seem to have decided not to allow extremists behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to isolate Iran and other Islamic nations from the rest of the world.
"Various power centers (in Tehran) have realized that the greatest danger is marginalization," he said.
He called Irans offer to cooperate with the United States if any US plane crashes inside inside Iran during military operations in neighboring Afghanistan a "significant" signal in the diplomatic "ballet" between Tehran and Washington.
And implying another positive signal, he said the pro-Iran Hizbollah group, which Washington includes on its terrorism list, "launched no operation against Israel" in the past year , a claim US officials later disputed.
Iranian leaders have strongly condemned last months deadly suicide attacks in New York and Washington, raising cautious expectations of better relations after 22 years of hostility.
But Iran has publicly opposed the US,led military strikes in Afghanistan, where the ruling Taliban has harbored the Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
Picco said the hijackers who slammed commercial jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were "pushing the Islamic world and in particular the Arab world into a possible Ghetto, isolated by everybody else." He predicted one outcome could be that two years hence, China, which has backed the US,led anti-terror effort, would become the ninth member of the group of leading industrial nations while Islamic nations remained on the sidelines.
Faced with this, "Iran in my view is now ready to play a role which until now it has not played," Picco said.
Iran, which has been trying to integrate with the west and improve its economy, "has no intention of being isolated from the international community .Has no intention of being taken down by those who hijacked Islam and the Arab world" with the US attacks, he said.
Iran could help stabilize the situation in Afghanistan, contribute intelligence to the US-led anti-terror effort and indirectly assist military operations, he said.
The United States has not had official diplomatic ties with Iran since the Islamic revolution of 1979 when student revolutionaries seized the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
In recent years, Washington has offered an official dialogue with Iran that was not accepted.
However, the two sides communicate informally through various channels, including the Swiss embassy in Tehran.
One obstacle has been a US demand than Iran stop sponsoring groups like Hizbollah waging war against Israel.
Picco said "Hizbollah since the beginning of the (Palestinian) Intifada 12 months ago has launched no operations against Israel" and called the past year "the 12 quietest months" on Israels border with Lebanon in more than a decade.
But US officials said the situation is more complicated.
While the border has been quieter, there has been some Hizbollah shelling and with Israel now withdrawn from southern Lebanon, all such attacks should have been ended, they said.
Commander Solo tells Taliban, surrender or die WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) "When you decide to surrender, approach United States forces with your hands in the air.
Sling your weapon across your back, muzzle towards the ground.
Remove your magazine and expel any rounds.
Doing this is your only chance of survival." Booming down from the sky to the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan, this message, and others like it, are the United States new front in its war to bring down Afghanistans Taliban rulers and wipe out Osama bin Ladens Al Qaeda network, chief suspect in last months suicide plane attacks on New York and Washington.
If there was ever any doubt US ground forces would be used in Afghanistan, the broadcasts end such speculation.
Transcripts of the messages were released by the Pentagon yesterday.
In them, Afghan civilians are advised what to do when ground forces arrive, how to avoid harm during the present bombing raids and are warned not to stand under food drops the United States is making to feed Afghanistans near-starving population.
Delivered in an operation named "commander solo," the messages, broadcast in local Afghan dialects from a slow moving EC-130CE plane, are the center piece of US psychological warfare efforts, along with dropping of millions of leaflets with similar messages.
"Stay away from military installations, government buildings, terrorist camps, roads, factories or bridges," warn the broadcasts.
They started earlier this week once the United States controlled the skies over Afghanistan and the planes could operate without worrying about anti-aircraft fire.
"If you are near these places, then you must move away from them.
Seek a safe place, and stay well away from anything that might be a target.
We do not wish to harm you." The broadcasts vow to give no quarter to Taliban soldiers and Al Qaeda supporters who do not surrender.
"Attention, Taliban.
You are condemned.
Did you know that? the instant the terrorists you support took over our planes, you sentenced yourselves to death".
The messages poke fun at the Talibans military prowess and outdated weapons, saying they are no match for the United States "State of the art military equipment." "What are you using, obsolete and ineffective weaponry," the broadcasts say.
"Our bombs are so accurate we can drop them right through your windows." "You have only one choice.
Surrender now and we will give you a second chance.
We will let you live.
If you surrender, no harm will come to you." Afghans were advised that once US ground forces arrived, the safest place to be would be in their homes.
People of Afghanistan, United States forces will be moving through your area .Please for your own safety stay off bridges and roadways and do not interfere with our troops or military operations," the broadcasts advise.
"If you see United States forces, you need to find shelter and not leave it until we have left the area .Your home will be the safest place." The broadcasts call for passive resistance against bin Laden and the Taliban "by not supplying him or his supporters with food, water or lodging." "Small things such as these will make the biggest impact." The broadcasts are scathing about bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, describing them as "cowards" who do not represent Afghanistan or Islam.
"If dying for this form of Islam is noble, why doesnt Mullah Omar go to the front.
He is enjoying his luxurious quarters and his wives while you are asked to die." The broadcasts have a warning for Afghans who are too eager to retrieve food and other supplies rained down on Afghanistan from two days after bombing started on October 7.
"These bundles may appear small, but they are in fact very large and heavy," the broadcasts warn.
"Do not stand directly beneath them" "The United States cannot warn you enough about the danger you will put yourself in if you do not stay away from the bundles until they land." The Pentagon is coy about why the day-and-night broadcasts are named "commander solo" but boasts they were highly successful during US military operations in grenada, Haiti, Panama and during the Gulf war.
There has been speculation "commander solo" was named after the film character Han Solo, played by Harrison Ford, who was the hero of the Hollywood "Star Wars" series.
Soldiers, Afghan public choose pickup trucks ISLAMABAD, Oct 19 (Reuters) The vehicle of choice for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan is a double-cab pickup truck.
But ordinary Afghans also use the same battered Japanese-made trucks as impromptu buses, making it difficult for US forces targeting the ruling Taliban to direct their weapons accurately.
Already the Taliban, who have refused to hand over terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden, have accused the United States of hitting civilian targets.
These have included two truckloads of Afghans fleeing air raids, and UN officials have complained after air strikes have hit aid compounds.
US officials have said repeatedly that Afghan civilians are not a target but that civilian casualties were inevitable in the campaign to force the Taliban to hand over bin Laden, the prime suspect behind the attacks last month on the United States.
"People need to distinguish between combatants and those innocent civilians who do not bear arms," UN Afghanistan coordinator for humanitarian aid mike sackett said after a US bomb struck a UN,funded demining office in Kabul, killing four people.
US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed regret for the deaths, but said he did not know if they had been due to US weapons.
The Japanese four-wheel-drive trucks are a ubiquitous sight in Kabul and Southern Kandahar, some carrying civilians and others full of Taliban soldiers with guns.
The trucks, smuggled from Pakistan or purchased secondhand from Dubai, ferry troops to frontlines or chickens to markets.
A growth industry has sprung up in Afghanistan for their repair, with roadside mechanics capable of fixing engines on the spot.
The most modern methods are not used, and in winter drivers sometimes build fires under the diesel engines in the trucks to make them easier to start.
A Taliban information ministry official, Abdul Hanan Himat, quoting officials in Kandahar, said US strikes hit a truck packed with Afghans trying to flee air raids on the town of Chunai near the Southern Taliban stronghold Kandahar this week.
"Another attack, we dont know whether it was a bomb or a missile, killed all passengers who were trying to flee from Chunai," he said.
That was followed a day later by reports of a similar incident.
education minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, who is also the top government spokesman, told Reuters the US strikes had hit a truck loaded with residents fleeing an eastern Afghan town.
"In chaparhar district, a truck carrying people fleeing was hit and all people on board died," he said.
He did not say how many passengers there were.
There was no way to independently confirm the report, which comes as the United States works down a shrinking list of stationary targets and military planners said US strategy has shifted to closer-range air combat in "engagement zones".
"We now have the access to be able to do engagement zones that we might not have had with an air defense capability that weve recently taken out," said rear admiral John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations at the joint chiefs of staff.
But he said the types of targets in an engagement zone are predetermined so the pilots, for example, know they are hunting for tanks or mobile surface-to-air missile systems.
"So the sense that theres any freewheeling or any self-determination is really not correct," he said.
In Pakistan, where many people are unhappy after president Pervez Musharraf sided with the United States against the Taliban, concerns have been raised about civilian casualties, especially after US bombs hit warehouses operated by the international committee of the Red Cross in Kabul this week.
"Such inexcusable errors speak very highly of the targeting efficiency of the bombers and more importantly seriously dent the concomitant stress that the war is not against the already suffering Afghan people," the news newspaper said in an editorial.
"Military vehicles had been seen in the vicinity of these warehouses," the Pentagon said in a statement after what it called an inadvertent strike destroyed aid supplies intended for internally displaced Afghans.
"US forces did not know that the ICRC was using one or more of the warehouses." Laden ancestral home in Yemen draws sightseers REBAT BAASHEN, (YEMAN), Oct 19 (Reuters) Salem Bashar drove more than seven hours on a dirt road to take a look at Osama bin Ladens ancestral home in this remote to Rebat Baashen by fascination with the way, this building," Bashar said, one of dozens of people who have travelled out of curiosity or admiration to see the place where the bin Ladens originated.
The 22-year-old student made the journey from the Southern Port of Mukalla to Gaze at a three-storey stone house once owned by bin Ladens father, Sheikh Mohammad Salem bin Laden, and now converted into a 20-room elementary school.
Osama bin Laden, accused by the United States of plotting the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, is seen as a hero by some in impoverished Yemen who identify with his grievances against the west.
"I dont know what happened, but I see people have started to notice the school after television showed pictures of Osama bin Laden, said salesman Hashem Abdullah, 49 a resident of the village.
Sheikh Mohammad, the father of Osama bin Laden, left the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula at the turn of the 20th century and amassed a fortune in construction in the oil boom in Saudi Arabia.
The family home was taken over by the South Yemeni authorities in the 1970s and converted into a school.
After Yemens unification in 1990, the building was returned to the bin Laden family but they donated it back to the state.
Not everyone is happy about the attention suddenly paid to the village 780 km east of the capital Sanaa.
Residents said they were annoyed by visitors taking pictures of the building.
"What do they want with the school?" Sheikh Tarfeeeq Salem, 59, asked angrily.
"Leave us alone we have nothing to do with bin Laden or anyone else." An official at the school, who asked not to be named, said the sightseers interest in the building was unjustified.
"Osama bin Laden has never lived here, he was not born here.
He was born and raised in Saudi Arabia," he said.
Born in Saudi Arabia in 1957, the 17th of 57 children, bin Laden inherited a fortune from his father.
He has since been disowned by his family and stripped of Saudi citizenship.
Al Qaeda net threatened US attack BUENOS AIRES, (ARGENTINA), Oct 19 (Reuters) Warnings of an imminent attack on the United States in September 2000 were made by callers claiming to belong to Osama bin Ladens Al Qaeda network in repeated phone calls to Argentinas embassy in Saudi Arabia, a Foreign Ministry official has said.
Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda group are the US governments prime suspects in September 11, hijacked airplane attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
"On the 20th, 23rd and 24th of September of last year the Argentine Embassy in Saudi Arabia received anonymous phone calls announcing an attack on the United States that would take place on the 26th of September of 2000, said the Foreign Ministry official yesterday, who asked not to be named.
The callers also "claimed responsibility for one, just one, explosion in Argentina and also said they were of the Al Qaeda group," he added.
Argentinas Jewish Community counts 300,000 people and is the biggest in Latin America and the seventh largest in the world.
Argentina, Israel and the United States all suspect Middle East guerrillas backed by Iran were behind the 1992 bomb attack of the Israeli embassy in Buenos aires that killed 29 people and the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center which killed 85.
Iran has denied involvement in the attacks.
Four of bin Ladens followers were sentenced to life in prison without parole by a US court yesterday for the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.
The foreign ministry official said Argentina notified the US embassy in Saudi Arabia of the calls it received and collaborated with the US government in probing those calls.
Argentinas Intelligence agency dismissed the callers information on an explosion in Argentina since it said Al Qaeda was not confirmed in its current form before 1998, he said.
US prosecutors in the US embassy bombing case described Al Qaeda as a "terrorist" group bin Laden formed in the 1980s in Afghanistan to help muslims fight the Soviet invasion.
"The Argentine embassy in Saudi Arabia received three anonymous calls where an explosion in Argentina was attributed to Al Qaeda which could be the bombing of AMIA or could be the attack on the (Israeli) embassy, we dont know," Amia spokesman Alfredo Neuburger said.
The Argentine Federal judge currently presiding over the trial of suspects linked to the unresolved 1994 car-bombing of the AMIA Community Center, Juan Jose Galeano, was not immediately available for comment.
"The Buenos Aires trial of those charged with involvement in the bombing of a Jewish-related building in the early 1990s, brings paraguayan-centered terrorism and regional security concerns to the forefront," the US based council on hemispheric affairs said on yesterday.
Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, is considered south Americas contraband capital and home to some 30,000 people of Arabic origin.
Last month Paraguayan police detained 17 Lebanese and Jordanian citizens near the "triple frontier" with Argentina and Brazil for questioning after the September 11 attacks.
A high-ranking official from Hizbollah, the Syrian and Iranian backed group Washington calls a "terrorist" organization, was known to have been in nearby Foz do Iguazu, on the Brazilian side of the "triple frontier", and probably in paraguay as well in may of this year.
US offers 1 m Dlr reward in Anthrax mail cases WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) The US government on Thursday offered a one million dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for mailing Anthrax, FBI Director Robert Mueller announced.
"This reward continues the strong partnership between the FBI and the postal authorities in tracking down criminals who use our mail system to further their illegal deeds," said Mueller, joined at a news conference by US Postmaster General John Potter.
"We are very pleased to contribute to this endeavor and once again call upon the public to assist us in this fight against terrorism," he said.
The FBI is investigating the spate of recent Anthrax incidents that include the potentially deadly bacteria being mailed to the offices of Senate majority leader Tom Daschle on Capitol Hill and to NBC in New York.
In addition, one person has died in Florida as a result of Anthrax inhalation.
"We are treating every instance around the country as a serious crime," Mueller said.
On Thursday two more people tested positive for anthrax a CBS employee in New York and a postal worker in New Jersey bringing the total to six.
The Anthrax incidents, which began emerging earlier this month, have raised fears of a broad bioterrorism attack in a nation already jittery from the Sept.
11 suicide hijackings that killed nearly 5,400 people at the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
Justice department officials said a total of 803 people had been arrested or detained in connection with the investigation into the attacks, up from 787 on Wednesday.
Of the total, 147 were being held for immigration violations.
Attorney General John Ashcroft told a later news conference the government still believed that Americas still faced a threat and should be on alert and try to minimize risks.
Searching for source of bacteria at the first news conference, Ashcroft said the government would act to "prevent further harm" as officials searched for the source of the bacteria, "and for the person or people responsible for the criminal acts of disbursing and sending these bacteria in the mail." Federal Law Enforcement officials said the letters to Daschle and NBC contained similar references to Allah as well as warnings that Anthrax was enclosed.
Both letters were postmarked Trenton, New Jersey, and were being put through a series of tests including handwriting analysis.
Ashcroft declined to comment on the contents of the letters, saying officials wanted to guard the information in case similar letters were discovered.
Ashcroft was unable to pinpoint who might be responsible for the Anthrax incidents.
"We have ruled out neither international terrorism nor domestic terrorism," he said.
"It may well be that we have opportunists in the United States or terrorists in the United States who are acting in ways that are unrelated." At FBI headquarters, Mueller met with several police chiefs from around the country and agreed to improve cooperation and set up more Joint Terrorism Task Forces.
US navy set ship ablaze in Gulf : Iraq BAGHDAD, Oct 19 (Reuters) Iraq has accused the US Navy in the Gulf of setting a civilian vessel ablaze near its southern port of Mina al-Bakr.
"A civilian vessel owned by an Iraqi citizen was attacked on September 26 by a unit of the American Navy in the Arab Gulf," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday in a statement carried by the State News Agency INA.
The spokesman said the ship was forced to return to port after its bridge was badly damaged by fire.
"These acts are ...
Disapproved of by the international community and represent a blatant violation of the charter of the United States and basic principles governing relations between states," the spokesman said, adding Iraq "reserved the right to respond".
The US Navy is policing the Gulf to prevent the smuggling of goods banned under United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.