Afghan police fanned out in southern Kandahar today to confiscate weapons from armed groups as the United States issued a global appeal to find five al Qaeda men it said could be plotting suicide attacks.
The United States assured the new Afghan interim government of its long-term support for desperately needed reconstruction even as its hunt for members of Osama bin Laden's spread deeper into countries beyond Afghanistan.
Police from Britain to the Philippines moved against terror suspects believed linked to bin Laden's radical network blamed for the September 11th attacks on the United States that killed about 3,100 people.
Fearing that tankers or freighters could be turned into floating weapons and sailed into the hearts of port cities, the US Coast Guard called for stringent new security measures for world shipping.
The head of the US Customs Service issued a warning that groups such as al Qaeda might try to launch such an attack with a nuclear bomb hidden in a shipping container.
The operation against illegal guns in Kandahar was launched at 6 a.m. (1.30 a.m Irish time), shortly after the nightly curfew ended, and within hours bursts of machinegun fire could be heard from the northeast sector of the city.
In Washington, US Attorney General Mr John Ashcroft released videos and photographs of what he called five would-be suicide terrorists and appealed to the public around the world to be on the lookout for them.
"Analysis of the audio portion of these tapes conducted thus far suggests...that the men may be trained and prepared to commit future suicide terrorist acts," Mr Ashcroft told a news conference.
He said the material was found in the house of Muhammad Atef, the military strategist of bin Laden's al Qaeda and a right-hand man who the United States says was killed in November by the air strikes.