British commandos, the spearhead of the UN-approved multinational force, moved into Kabul yesterday to ensure security on the eve of the historic inauguration of Afghanistan's new powersharing government.
A small detachment of Royal Marines is to provide security for today's ceremony at which the powerful Northern Alliance military faction, which ousted the Taliban from the capital, was to hand power to the UN-backed interim regime.
The US-led military coalition has lost track of Osama bin Laden - President Bush said yesterday he did not know where he was - but one local commander declared he was still at large in Afghanistan.
Mr Hazrat Ali, security chief for Nangarhar province, said that bin Laden and his ally, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, had survived the onslaught on their bases.
"Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden are still alive. Bin Laden is still in the mountains," Mr Ali told reporters in the provincial capital, Jalalabad, giving no hint as to how he had come upon the information.
A spokesman for the US-led military coalition, Mr Kenton Keith, said: "We have no reason to think either Mullah Omar or bin laden are outside Afghanistan."
Afghan fighters said on Sunday that al-Qaeda had been defeated in its mountain stronghold of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan but that bin Laden had not been found, raising fears that he may have escaped the dragnet.
Many al-Qaeda fighters have fled to Pakistan, where some have been arrested by local forces, and the United States is mounting a naval and intelligence operation to prevent them fleeing to suspected hideouts in other countries.
One of the countries named as a possible al-Qaeda hiding place is Somalia, where bin Laden has allies.
Yesterday a Somali official said that eight foreigners suspected of terrorist links had been arrested.
The official of the Somali transitional government, speaking in Nairobi, did not identify the eight - who are being interrogated by intelligence officials - but police in Mogadishu said that a number of Iraqis had been picked up.
The US-led coalition has vowed to find bin Laden and warned that any country found harbouring terrorists could face military action.
The coalition announced yesterday that it and its Afghan allies were holding 7,000 prisoners in Afghanistan.
US officials have said that their intelligence agents have been able to talk to many of the prisoners, as well as some al-Qaeda men caught in Pakistan, but admit that they have no good information on bin Laden's whereabouts.
A Pentagon spokeswoman, Ms Victoria Clarke, said US and allied forces were still scouring Afghan caves and bunkers, adding: "Our primary objective remains to get the very senior, very top al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership."
Bin Laden has found support among Islamist elements in Yemen and is accused by Washington of an October 2000 attack on the US destroyer Cole in Aden that killed 17 US sailors.
Both Yemen and Somalia have been cited by experts as possible targets for the next phase of the US-led war on al-Qaeda, which was blamed for the September 11th terror attacks in the US.
With military action against al-Qaeda now mainly a question of mopping up remaining resistance and looking for bin Laden's trail, the focus of the world community has turned to securing for Afghanistan a peaceful future.
In Rome, Afghanistan's exiled former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, said he wished Mr Karzai well and would himself return to his homeland within two months and, "like a setting sun", end his days there.