At least three US aircraft carriers were heading to undisclosed destinations Wednesday as Washington assembled an international military coalition expected to go into Afghanistan after Osama bin Laden, the main suspect behind last week's terror attacks on the United States.
At the same time, Afghanistan's fundamentalist Muslim rulers, the Taliban, defiantly prepared for a jihad, or "holy war", and called volunteers willing to fight against "infidels" to register with authorities.
Tens of thousands of Afghans have fled Kabul and other cities ahead of expected US strikes, massing near the border with Pakistan.
Hundreds of Islamic scholars, or ulema, were to meet in the Afghan capital Wednesday to consider whether to bow to a US demand that bin Laden be extradited. The demand was transmitted by a Pakistani delegation on Monday.
The UN Security Council on Tuesday also called for the Taliban to "immediately and unconditionally" hand over bin Laden. The ulema, however, have said he would not be surrendered without solid proof of his guilt - something Washington has not yet produced.
In the United States, calls to avenge the September 11 attacks, in which hijacked domestic passenger aircraft slammed into and toppled the New York's World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, have climbed along with the body count.
More than 5,800 people are now confirmed dead or are listed as missing. Most of the carnage was at what the US media called "ground zero," the smoldering mountain of rubble that used to be the site of the World Trade Center's 110-storey twin towers.
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said hopes of finding anyone alive in the ruins of the World Trade Center have almost faded, but were "not totally over."
US President George W. Bush has vowed to get bin Laden "dead or alive" and wage a crusade against terrorism. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Tuesday that the message to Afghanistan "remains loud and it remains clear: Those nations that harbour terrorists will not be spared."
In Norfolk, Virginia, the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt was to slip out of port along with an escort of 11 warships and a unit of Marines capable of conducting special operations, according to the US navy.
A navy statement did not give the aircraft carrier's destination, but a navy official said the Roosevelt had long been scheduled to deploy to the Mediterranean and the Gulf, and claimed the departure was a "normal six month rotation."
Two other US carrier battle groups led by aircraft carriers USS Enterprise and USS Carl Vinson are in the area of the Indian Ocean, navy officials have said. According to the navy web site for the Carl Vinson, the ship has ceased making public its position, in line with pre-battle procedure.
In Washington, Bush met French President Jacques Chirac on Tuesday in the first of what will be a flurry of face-to-face talks with foreign leaders over the next few days aimed at forging a multi-nation coalition against terrorism.
Every allied state has voiced its strong support for the United States, but some have expressed reservations at signing up for an ill-defined military operation with fuzzy goals, especially one that risked stirring anti-West sentiment in Muslim countries.
Chirac said after his talks with Bush that France could "conceivably" join an international military force - but only if its aims and strategy was agreed beforehand.
Tony Blair, the prime minister of Britain, Washington's strongest military ally, is expected to be a lot more hawkish when he sees Bush Thursday.
On Tuesday, Blair issued a stern warning to the Taliban.
"They should consider very, very carefully the consequences" of not obeying the demand for bin Laden's extradition, he told the BBC. "Nobody should be in doubt of our total and complete determination to do what is necessary to bring to justice those who perpetrated this crime."
Bush and US Secretary of State Colin Powell were also to meet leaders and officials from many other countries, including from Germany, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, China, Italy and Canada.
Even Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat - once himself considered a terrorist - offered help, telling Bush in a letter "of our readiness to be part of the international alliance to put an end to terrorism against innocent and unarmed civilians."
US defence force recruiters said public interest in the army, navy and air force had greatly increased since the attacks, even if enlistments had not spiked upwards.
The US supreme commander in Europe, General Joseph Ralston, warned US casualties would be unavoidable in the event of a conflict.
"There will be casualties," he said. "That is a necessary part of any military operation."
As preparations for war grew, concern mounted that a recession may be in the making in the United States.
On Tuesday, the second day of trading on Wall Street since the attacks, the blue-chip Dow Jones index dropped 0.19 percent, deepening Monday's losses when the index suffered its biggest point loss ever.
Boeing, the giant US aircraft manufacturer, announced Tuesday it would be cutting 20,000 to 30,000 employees from its commercial aircraft unit because of the heavy financial toll the attacks had taken on US airlines.
Meanwhile, the worldwide hunt for the culprits fanned out as intelligence agencies tracked thousands of leads.
In Italy alone police detained 60 people on Tuesday in a vast swoop on radical leftist groups suspected of having links with terrorism.
A US government source said the CIA was looking into reports that one of the hijackers, identified as Mohammed Atta, met a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Europe prior to the attacks, but said the spy agency was not certain the talk had anything to do with last week's operation.
A warning by US Attorney General John Ashcroft that more planes may have been targeted for hijacking on September 11 has slowed air traffic throughout the United States as strict security checks are imposed.
In Washington, more than 200 passengers were removed from a Northwest Airlines flight about to take off from Dulles International Airport to allow FBI and police officers to inspect the aircraft, an airport spokeswoman said -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
