Condoleezza Rice has said that her administration would not be deterred by reports that the Taliban could not find Osama bin Laden. The United States has demanded that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement hand over Mr bin Laden or face military action after the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
Ms Rice said that she simply did not believe reports coming that Mr Bin Laden had gone missing. Ms Rice also said that the United States had the right to self-defence and needed no additional approval from the United Nations to respond to the attacks.
Earlier, the Taliban said that Mr bin Laden has disappeared. The Pakistani news agency, the Afghan Islamic Press, which has close contacts with the Taliban, quoted a Taliban spokesman as saying that they were looking for Mr bin Laden but could not find him. It is believed Mr bin Laden has been under Taliban protection inside Afghanistan.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said, meanwhile, that the US had lost contact with one of its unmanned aerial vehicles but he said that he did not believe it had been shot down.
The Taliban today re-stated its determination not to hand over Mr bin Laden and warned of serious consequences if American forces attack the country. A spokesman for the movement's spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was quoted by an Afghan press agency as saying the demand for Mr bin Laden's surrender was unacceptable.
Meanwhile, Russia's chief of staff has met the new leader of Afghanistan's armed opposition for talks, which are believed to have examined the potential fallout from any possible US military action against Afghan targets.
General Anatoly Kvashnin met the new leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, General Mohammed Fahim, in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
Thousands of Russian troops are kept in the former Soviet republic. Some 11,000 troops guard the country's 744-kilometre border with Afghanistan. Russia yesterday confirmed that it has been aiding the Afghan opposition for a long time.
In another development, a number of countries including Russia and France have said that they would prefer to see a United Nations resolution authorising military action in Americas new war.
