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Friday, January 18, 2002 - Web posted at 3:25:09 pm GMT

KANDAHAR - Afghan police fanned out in southern Kandahar on Friday 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 11 attacks on the United States that killed about 3,100 people.

An inspection team from the International Committee of the Red Cross headed for the U.S. internment camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amid concern among rights groups about the conditions in which captives from the war in Afghanistan are being held.

Fearing that tankers or freighters could be turned into floating weapons and sailed into the hearts of port cities, the U.S. Coast Guard called for stringent new security measures for world shipping.

The head of the U.S. Customs Service issued a warning that groups such as al Qaeda might try to launch such an attack with a a nuclear bomb hidden in a shipping container.

The operation against illegal guns in Kandahar was launched at 6 a.m. (0130 GMT), shortly after the nightly curfew ended, and within hours bursts of machinegun fire could be heard from the northeast sector of the city.

In one incident, a Reuters correspondent saw two policemen open fire with Kalashnikov rifles at a taxi that refused to stop at their checkpoint. About five rounds were fired, smashing the rear window of the vehicle. The taxi was brought to a halt at the next checkpost, and no one was hurt.

Afghanistan is awash with firearms after 23 years of war and there are fears that lawlessness could derail efforts by the new government to begin reconstruction.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell -- the highest ranking U.S. visitor in 25 years -- made a brief stop in Kabul on Thursday, meeting interim leader Hamid Karzai and pledging a major contribution to a reconstruction fund to be launched at a donors' conference in Tokyo early next week.

"We are committed to doing everything we can to assist you in this time of transition to a new Afghanistan...where people will be able to live in peace and security," Powell said.

Powell, in the region to try to defuse tensions between nuclear powers Pakistan and India, spent just a few hours in Kabul where the Taliban ruled until their defeat less than two months ago at the hands of the U.S. military and Afghan rivals.

The United States launched waves of air strikes against Afghanistan on October 7 to crush the Taliban and the al Qaeda network that found a haven in the country under the rule of the hardline Islamic movement.

Powell said U.S. security forces were still scouring Afghanistan to purge any Taliban or al Qaeda "contamination".

An Australian special forces member was wounded in a mine blast while on patrol near Kandahar, Australian defence officials said. He is the first Australian to be wounded since the country joined the U.S.-led operation.

In Washington, U.S. Attorney General 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," 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.

Red Cross representatives left Florida for the U.S. navy base in Guantanamo Bay to inspect the prison camp where Taliban and al Qaeda captives are being held.

The treatment of the prisoners, who are temporarily being held in 6-foot-by-8-foot (2-metre-by-2.6-metre) cells with roofs and floors but only chain-link walls, has raised concerns among human rights groups.

The United States denies the men are entitled to be classified as prisoners of war, which would grant them certain rights under the Geneva Convention.

But U.S. officials gave permission for the four-member team from the ICRC to visit. The team was to arrive in Guantanamo late on Thursday and stay at least one night.

"They will find what happens to be true -- that these people are being treated very humanely," Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told reporters in Washington.

U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson, in remarks backed by Secretary General Kofi Annan, said it was extremely important that the prisoners were treated according to international human rights and humanitarian law.

In the central England town of Leicester, two Algerian men were charged with membership in al Qaeda and "financing terrorism".

Baghdad Meziane, 36, and Brahim Benmerzouga, 30, were arrested two weeks after the September attacks as part of a pan-European investigation.

A Bosnian court ordered the release of five Algerians and a Yemeni detained in October on suspicion of involvement in international terrorism, but the Pentagon immediately said U.S. troops in Bosnia would take the six into custody.

A total of nine people suspected of al Qaeda links were arrested on Thursday in Pakistan and the Philippines. Police in Manila said they had also seized a ton of explosives.

In the most significant military move against terrorism since the Afghanistan campaign, U.S. soldiers set up camp on an island in the southern Philippines where they will help local forces fight Muslim rebels linked to bin Laden.

The deployment, which will total about 650 troops described as non-combat personnel, sparked a chorus of protests in Manila. Government critics said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo could be impeached for allowing in foreign soldiers. Nampa-Reuters

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