PRESIDENT George W Bush said tens of thousands of Osama bin Laden's followers around the world were like "ticking time bombs", while in Afghanistan remnant Taliban and al Qaeda forces were believed to be plotting an attack on a southeastern town.

With his country still threatened by lack of security and lawlessness, interim leader Hamid Karzai told reporters in Washington that he wanted US forces to stay in his country as long "as the war against terrorism is on".

And the whereabouts of Saudi-born militant Bin Laden, the chief suspect for Sept 11 attacks on the United States, were still a mystery.

It was not known whether he was dead or alive.

A member of the tribal council in the southeastern Afghan town of Gardez said Bin Laden's fighters and remnants of the Taliban were plotting an assault on the town where some US special forces are located.

About 300 fighters - both Taliban and al Qaeda - were poised for an assault to the west of Gardez, said tribal leader Abdul Wali, who supports the interim government.

"They have light and heavy weapons and have a plan to attack Gardez," Wali said, adding that top Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani was massing the forces and planned the offensive.

Wali said the Gardez tribal council had told US special forces based in the town about the threat.

"We are in contact with them about the matter. We are also talking among each other what to do," he told Reuters by satellite phone from Gardez.

In Washington, Bush used his State of the Union speech to set out a path for winning the war on terrorism.

He singled out Iraq, Iran and North Korea as pursuing weapons of mass destruction, calling them "an axis of evil".

"As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, and the civilised world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet the state of our union has never been stronger," he said, prompting a standing ovation from congress, cabinet members and other dignitaries, including Afghan leader Karzai.

Bush cited new intelligence saying tens of thousands of militants had been trained in terrorism tactics in Afghanistan since 1996 and were spread through more than 60 nations.

"What we have found in Afghanistan confirms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is only beginning," he said.

"Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are...spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs," he said.

As for where his war on terrorism goes next, Bush did not identify countries except to say Washington was helping train armed forces in the Philippines to pursue militants and the Navy is patrolling the coast of Africa to block weapons to Somalia.

But Karzai, leader of Afghanistan's six-month interim government, said he did not want US troops to leave his country until their job is done.

"As long as the war against terrorism is on, we will require the help of the American and other international security forces. So there's no timeframe (for withdrawal)," he said.

Just over 4 000 US troops are in Afghanistan after helping opposition forces drive out the Taliban.

Bush told Karzai the US would help train a new Afghan military but made clear he would not commit US troops to peacekeeping in the landlocked country.

Karzai weighed into the row over prisoners from the Afghan war, saying he fully backed Bush's stance on the Taliban and al Qaeda captives flown to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"The people ... detained in Guantanamo are not prisoners of war," he said.

"They are criminals, they brutalised people, they killed, they destroyed our land. But I want them to be treated nicely, I want there to be a difference between them and us."

In Pakistan, police said more than a dozen people linked to a radical Islamic group had been detained in the search for kidnapped US reporter Daniel Pearl, but they were still no closer to tracing him.

Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl (38) went missing in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi a week ago.

He was working on a story about alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid.

While Bush did not say where the war on terrorism might next be waged, a leading Iraqi parliamentarian blasted as "baseless" Bush's accusation that Iraq was pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

"Little Bush's accusation against Iraq is baseless," Salim al-Qubaisi, head of Foreign and Arab Relations Committee at the Iraqi parliament, told Reuters.

The Iraqi politician used the expression to differentiate the US leader from his father, former US President George Bush, who led the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. - Nampa-Reuters