NEW YORK, Oct 20: As the US special forces opened the ground war front, US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld warned that the anti-Taliban forces in Southern Afghanistan are not yet strong enough either to bring down the government or to run down Osama bin Laden’s network, Al Qaeda.

The New York Times on Saturday reported Rumsfeld as saying that “the Taliban are tough and they are “survivors”. It would be unwise to think that the outcome is determined,” he said. “It’s not,” he added.

The American special forces which have begun the operation from the southern tip of Afghanistan are trying to organize an effective resistance from that region. Although the main anti-Taliban forces are concentrated in the North, but in the US estimation South needs work. And the task in that part of the country will not be easy, Rumsfeld warned.

President Bush monitored the ground attack from Shanghai, where he was attending an economic conference, and said he had “near unanimous” support from Pacific rim nations for both the military action in Afghanistan and his broader war against terrorism. On this presidential trip, China agreed to share intelligence on terrorist groups. But American officials said they were unsure how much that promise was really worth.

Meanwhile, the Times said that officials in six countries in Europe and the Middle East said that based on intercepted communications among Osama associates and other tools, they are convinced that more terrorist attacks are coming. They had yet to connect the recent Anthrax letters in the United States to Al-Qaeda, these officials said, but even if they were Osama’s work, new episodes of terrorism can be expected.

Two more cases of Anthrax came to light -a worker at The New York Post and a postal carrier near Trenton. The total number of infected Americans now stands at eight, including a Florida man who died. Given that several thousand people have been tested with negative results, the small number of actual cases could be considered good news. Then again, through the entire 20th century in this country, there were only 18 known instances of inhalation of Anthrax, the most severe form of the disease. From that vantage, the current news is far from cheery.

There were also signs that Anthrax spores may have spread to other countries, including Kenya, Argentina and Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, the offices of The New York Times received a letter, postmarked New York City, that tested positive for Anthrax traces.

One potentially important conclusion was announced in Washington by Tom Ridge, director of homeland security. Letters sent to NBC News in New York, to the Florida offices of a supermarket tabloid and to the office of the Senate majority leader all seemed to share the same strains of the Anthrax bacteria. In other words, all may have come from a single source, though that source is still unknown, the paper said.