ISLAMABAD - US military forces slowly encircled Afghanistan on Saturday (NZT) as Washington sent troops to neighbouring Uzbekistan and won permission to use nearby Georgia as a base for air strikes in response to last month's suicide attacks on New York and Washington.
The campaign even took to the heavens when the US military launched a rocket from California believed to be carrying a top-secret spy satellite to monitor the region ahead of any military moves.
The moves fuelled speculation that the next act in the crisis was nearing as President Bush assembled the biggest deployment of US forces since the 1991 Gulf War.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair on a visit to Pakistan, was already speaking about who should govern Afghanistan if the ruling Taleban refuses to comply with a demand to surrender Osama bin Laden, the top suspect in the attacks America that left some 5,600 dead.
He said Pakistani leaders agreed that any Taleban successor "must be broad based with every key ethnic group being represented."
Blair was forthright. "The purpose is to ensure that we have a trap set around Afghanistan in which everyone supports the things we need to do," he said.
The US sent 1,000 support troops to Uzbekistan, Afghanistan's northern neighbour, but the former Soviet Republic said they could be used only for humanitarian and rescue missions, not attacks.
Asked at joint press conference with visiting Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld why he would not allow U.S. special forces to operate from the former Soviet republic, President Islam Karimov said, "We are not quite ready for this."
But Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, who as Soviet foreign minister urged the withdrawal of Soviet troops from a bloody Afghanistan war, had no such reservations, offering the United States his "full cooperation and full solidarity.
"On my part I will include Georgia's airspace and if need be airfields and other infrastructure as well," he said after meeting with Bush in Washington.
The extent of attacks could be determined in part by what the newest US spy satellite sees after its Friday launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The Air Force refused to comment on the payload, but it was commissioned by the Defence Department's super secret National Reconnaissance Office, which specialises in gathering pictures and electronic data, including telephone conversations, on the ground from hundreds of miles up in space.
Aviation Week and Space Technology Magazine said Washington had been readying a satellite that could track small groups of Afghans on foot and even spot their campfires.
Back on Earth, the US-led campaign moved to other fronts as the Bush administration ordered $US320 million in urgent aid for Afghan civilians.
Pentagon officials said the US military was drawing up plans to parachute food to displaced people in Afghanistan, while the UN World Food Program scrambled to charter ships to send food to millions of Afghans.
There were also reports that fuel shipments from Pakistan to Afghanistan were being cut off in a blow at the Taleban army.
The "war on terrorism" declared by Bush suffered a setback when a rare diplomatic spat broke out between the United States and Israel, usually the strongest of allies.
The White House rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for saying the United States, as it tries to build an international coalition, risked appeasing Arab nations as Hitler was appeased on the eve of World War Two.
Israel, Sharon declared, "will not be Czechoslovakia".
"The prime minister's comments are unacceptable," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "Israel has no stronger friend and ally in the world than the United States, and President Bush is especially a close friend of Israel."
Arab states have criticised US support of Israel, particularly at a time when hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces in occupied territory.
The row came as Rumsfeld finished up a Middle East trip in which he sought to build support for the US-led campaign and stiffen the resolve of Gulf States to make sure US action is limited to Afghanistan and does not extend to other Arab states like Iraq.
Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz did him no favours when he said there is "broad agreement" among aides to focus first on the Taleban and bin Laden, but indicated Iraq could be a future target.
Asked about the extent to which it might be possible to target Iraq, Wolfowitz said bin Laden's al Qaeda group operated in 60 countries and Bush made clear that any nation continuing to support terrorism would be regarded as a "hostile regime".
Rumsfeld, after leaving Uzbekistan on his way back to the United States, held brief talks in Ankara with Turkish military and political leaders, including Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit. Defence Undersecretary Douglas Feith planned to stay in the Gulf region for visits to Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates,
On the US homefront, Bush said that Congress was working as quickly as possible to pass a massive emergency stimulus package to try and jump-start the US economy.
Stocks on Wall Street rebounded in mid-afternoon to end the day slightly up after Bush proposed a tax-relief program of at least $US60 billion to help the economy recover.
Finance ministers of the seven top economic powers will discuss a strategy to prevent extremist groups channelling funds through the global banking system when they meet in Washington on Sunday New Zealand time for the first time since the attacks took place.
US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said the meeting would also focus on pumping confidence into the global economy.
Adding to post-attack jitters in the United States, the Washington Post reported that intelligence officials had told members of Congress there was "a 100 per cent chance" of more terror attacks in America or abroad if the United States took military action against Afghanistan.
The White House declined to confirm the report, but acknowledged that "threats do remain".
The administration warned earlier about the possibility of biological attacks, which took on new urgency when a Florida man fell ill from anthrax, a rare disease that has been identified as a possible agent for biological warfare.
The man died on Saturday (NZT), but health officials said the anthrax case was an isolated one and not the result of an attack.
- REUTERS
Map: Opposing forces in the war against terror