China too said it was opposed to military strikes spreading from Afghanistan to other countries.
The US, which staged daylight raids on Tuesday and yesterday, says the bombing and missile raids it began on Sunday had shattered Taliban air defenses and military communications.
The latest raids hit the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar in the Taliban heartland, among other targets.
The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan said their spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and bin Laden were alive and well.
He rejected suggestions that their air defenses had been neutralized, saying that US planes were simply out of range.
Taliban officials said that a US cruise missile hit a residential area in Kabul's eastern outskirts overnight. There was no independent confirmation.
In Kabul itself, residents tried to go about their normal business but there was an undercurrent of anger. "We are unhappy about the attacks," said a shoeshine boy. "We have not slept for the past three nights because of fear of the attacks."
Witnesses said two young women and two girls were wounded by shrapnel from a US bomb dropped early yesterday east of Kabul.
The opposition Northern Alliance appeared to be trying to take advantage of the raids. It said it had seized control of the only remaining north-south highway after persuading 40 Taliban commanders and their 1,200 fighters to switch sides.
The raids have triggered protests by Muslim radicals in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, Afghanistan's neighbor Pakistan and parts of the Middle East -- where the issue has split Palestinians.
Around 1,000 students held a rowdy protest outside Indonesia's parliament yesterday, with some trying to knock down the gates leading into the complex in the biggest anti-American demonstration in the capital Jakarta this week.
But Islamic reaction, on the whole, has been muted.
In a sign of how the next phase of the campaign might develop US defense officials said Washington was preparing to use troop-carrying and army attack helicopters in Afghanistan to hunt down guerrillas allied with bin Laden.
Officials said UH-60 "Blackhawk" and other helicopters, including those designed for special operations troops, could be used with possible protection from AH-64 "Apache" attack helicopters. But the officials said such low-flying strikes were not imminent.
Police in Italy and Germany arrested three suspected Islamic militants believed to be linked to bin Laden, Italian judicial officials said. Police were seeking a fourth suspect in France as part of a three-nation coordinated swoop.
Americans took precautions to counter germ warfare after one man died in Florida from anthrax and a second case was diagnosed.
Several hundred people in Florida's coastal city of Boca Raton who may have come in contact with the dead man were tested for contamination. An FBI spokeswoman said it was too early to tell if the anthrax bacteria had been released intentionally.
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