Afghanistan's ruling Taliban gave Osama bin Laden free rein yesterday to wage holy war on the US as Washington said its warplanes had the run of the Afghan skies.
But with reports the US-led strikes had killed civilians, the world's biggest Islamic organization, at the end of an emergency meeting, said innocent Afghans should not be harmed in the retaliation for last month's attacks on American cities.
Other Arab states should not be targeted either, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), representing the world's 1.2 billion Muslims, said in a communique.
Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmaen said the activities of bin Laden -- the man Washington accuses of masterminding the New York and Washington attacks -- in Afghanistan were no longer restricted.
"With the start of the American attacks, these restrictions are no longer in place," Mutmaen told the BBC. "Jihad is an obligation on all Muslims of the world. We want this, bin Laden wants this and America will face the unpleasant consequences."
The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, told a news conference later that America would not be safe while it attacked Afghanistan.
"As long as America is shedding the blood of Afghans it will not be beneficial to America," Zaeef said. "If America is continuing attacks on Afghanistan it will also not be safe."
A spokesman for bin Laden's al-Qaeda network said in a video broadcast earlier by an Arabic television network that Americans could expect a repeat of the September attacks.
"In the [Muslim] nation there are thousands of youths who are as keen on death as Americans are keen on life," Sulaiman Bu Ghaith said in a message carried on Qatar's al-Jazeera satellite television.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell vowed yesterday that America's anti-terrorism campaign would put a stop to such boasts.
"Chilling words from a terrorist, the kind of words you expect to hear from an evil person with no good intention in mind," Powell said.
With the US military proclaiming supremacy in the skies over Afghanistan after three days of primarily night-time air and missile strikes, US President George W. Bush vowed justice would be done for the attacks on New York and Washington.
"If it takes one day, one month, one year, or one decade, we're patient enough," Bush added.
Against a background of sporadic protests by radicals across the Islamic world, British Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped up a diplomatic push to win Muslim support for efforts to flush out Saudi-born bin Laden, who has been under Taliban protection.
Blair, Bush's staunchest ally in his war on terrorism, arrived in the Gulf to try to win over skeptical Arab opinion -- a trip coinciding with the OIC's emergency meeting in Qatar.
Secretary of State Powell would make a similar trip to Pakistan, India and China, officials said.
The OIC issued an official condemnation yesterday of last month's attacks in the US but expressed concern at the prospect of civilian casualties in Western raids on Afghanistan.
The formal communique issued at the end of the emergency meeting of OIC foreign ministers also rejected the targeting of any Arab country under the pretext of combatting terrorism.
While many have said Iraq might be a target, Britain said yesterday it had no evidence linking Baghdad to last month's attacks on the US.
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