US to back Northern Alliance push

American fighters and bombers are to give close tactical support to a major push by Northern Alliance forces on the strategic Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif in the next few days, US commanders have warned.

On the battlefronts in Afghanistan, there has been a noticeable increase in the bombing campaign to help the local allies seize some strategic towns and bases before the onset of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fast, in a fortnight.

Meanwhile in Europe and the US, there are growing fears that members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network have been trying to acquire fissile materials to make a nuclear terrorist bomb.

While it is not thought that they have the skills to make a nuclear bomb itself yet, it is feared they have been trying to acquire nuclear waste to make a "dirty bomb" from organised crime networks in eastern Europe.

The international mafias have been trading in waste materials for some time. Last year, the UN reckoned that it was a trade with an annual turn-over of about £8 billion. The waste would be packed with conventional explosive material, so when the bomb went off, it would cover a wide area with contaminated material.

Fears of a nuclear incident have been fuelled in the US by reports that several men "of Middle Eastern origin" have been detained in the Mid-West as they were found travelling with plans of a US nuclear installation.

It has been conjectured that one of the aborted 11 September hijacks was intended for a kamikaze attack on a nuclear installation.

The Head of the International Atomic Authority is to report on the risks of a nuclear terrorist attack later today. Several nuclear installations, including the Crystal River installation north of St Petersburg in Florida, have been reinforced. At the Crystal River plant, the guards have been doubled and new concrete barriers and a new concrete road built round the reactors.

The US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that the ageing B-52s could be used for close bombing because US forces are now receiving better intelligence from the ground in Afghanistan. Since yesterday morning, B-52s and Navy F18 Hornets have been bombing Taliban forward positions round the strategic airfield of Bagram.