The US search for the al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders is now focused on the area between Kandahar and the Khyber Pass, including the Tora Bora area, Gen Tommy Franks confirmed last night at a press briefing in Tampa, Florida. "These are the areas right now where we have been led to pay close attention," he said.
But Gen Franks would not confirm whether or not he has intelligence information on the whereabouts for Osama bin Laden.
The Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, said US forces yesterday bombed a compound southeast of Kandahar used by leaders of both al Qaeda and the Taliban. "It clearly was a leadership area," he said.
Responding to questions about al-Qaeda's capability to develop or use weapons of mass destruction, Gen Franks said that the US had identified some 40 sites where there was a possibility that such work was underway.
Each of those was being visited systematically by scientific teams.
Although they had as yet found no specific chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, they had found equipped labs and some suspicious chemicals, he said. Exhaustive testing which might take some time would now establish whether weapons had been developed.
Gen Franks described the Kandahar situation as "confusing". There were attempts by some fighters to leave the city, he said, and it was coming under attack from the north and south from Pashtun tribal opposition forces. It was not intended to use the marines for that purpose, he insisted.
Meanwhile Iraq has firmly rebuffed President Bush's demand that it readmit UN weapons inspectors to look for weapons of mass destruction.
"Anyone who thinks Iraq can accept an arrogant and unilateral will of this party or that, is mistaken," an Iraqi government spokesman said. The spokesman said that before asking Iraq to allow weapons inspectors to return, the UN should lift the 11-year-old sanctions on Iraq, and the West should abolish the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.
On Monday the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, met his Russian counterpart, Mr Igor Ivanov, to discuss continuing efforts to reform, not lift, the sanctions regime. The US Administration, backed by the British, hopes to introduce so-called "smart sanctions" targeted specifically at the regime and its ability to produce weapons, rather than the catch-all sanctions.
Russia agreed with other UN Security Council members to the principle of tightening arms controls on Iraq. The US President's spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, earlier said there were "signs of movement" on the part of the Russians.
