The United States struck Taliban front lines in Afghanistan Sunday and the head of the 22-nation Arab League dismissed an appeal to Muslims by Osama bin Laden to join a holy war against the West. Fears of bioterrorism spread in the United States with anthrax discovered at a third postal facility in New Jersey and President Bush calling the mail scare "a second wave of terrorist attacks." With no clear US victories, Bush urged Americans to be patient with the campaign to punish Afghanistan's ruling Taliban for sheltering bin Laden and vowed to get the man Washington blames for the September 11 attacks on the United States that killed almost 4,800 people.

In Afghanistan, it was quiet around Kabul but US jets pounded Taliban front lines in the north as the air campaign entered a fifth week, a Reuters reporter said.
Taliban officials reported major gains on the ground south of the strategic northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, near the border with Uzbekistan, but there was no independent confirmation from an area where fighting has raged since the start of the US-led bombing on October 7.
The Northern Alliance has been struggling to advance on Mazar-i-Sharif but Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum has made little apparent progress in the past six weeks in his attempts to recapture his stronghold.
An opposition spokesman said Saturday 700 Taliban fighters had deserted the Muslim fundamentalist movement and joined the Northern Alliance. However, that report could not be verified and the Taliban have denied any defections.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa dismissed bin Laden's appeal for a holy war, saying the Saudi militant did not speak for the world's Arabs and Muslims. Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, also dismissed the plea and said the world was united in the US-led war against terrorism.
"There is a war between bin Laden and the whole world," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher told reporters ahead of a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Syria.
But Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara, in his address to the opening session of the meeting of the ministers, blasted the United States for its "unlimited" support to Israel.
Looking pale and becoming emotional toward the end of a televised statement, bin Laden, defiant in military fatigues and with an AK-47 assault rifle by his side, appealed to the world's 1.2 billion Muslims to join him in a religious war against "infidel" Christians and Jews.
"The leaders of the region are shunning and shying away from supporting their brothers," he said in the statement broadcast by Qatar's Arabic al-Jazeera satellite television channel Saturday. "This war is primarily a religious war."
White House spokeswoman Anne Womack dismissed the statement as an act of desperation, saying: "This is more propaganda that shows how isolated bin Laden is from the rest of the world."
Bush, himself a practicing Christian, has been at pains to maintain support among moderate Muslims by assuring them the United States is hunting down bin Laden and that the campaign in no way represents a war against Islam.
Bin Laden's comments were laced with Koranic verses and the sayings of Mohammed and he widened his attack to include the United Nations.
"The United Nations is a crime tool...are any of our tragedies not the making of the United Nations? he said.
"Those who claim to be Arab leaders and are still with the United Nations are infidels in the eyes of the message of Mohammed -- God's blessings and peace be upon him."
Asian leaders began arriving Sunday for a summit in the Islamic sultanate of Brunei. The centerpiece of the meeting of the Association of South East Nations is a declaration of support for the U.S. war on terror and a commitment to coordinate ASEAN's own anti-terrorist efforts.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is walking a political tightrope by backing Washington but he has stressed that military goals must be reached.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was due in Pakistan Sunday as part of a lightning tour of the region. He said in Tashkent that the US military operation was showing "measurable progress."
Bureau Report