Intelligence agencies and police forces around the world were battling to expose and dismantle Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, in what officials warned was a race against time to prevent further devastating attacks.
In Paris 24 suspected Islamic militants went on trial accused of participating in a series of bomb attacks in France in 1995. Reports said one of the accused had admitted to links with bin Laden.
Prosecutors told a London court that an Algerian pilot who appeared in London facing extradition to the United States was an instructor for four of the hijackers involved in the attacks in the United States.
Fears of further attacks forced the cancellation of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference in Brisbane, Australia, on October 6th.
Separately, Italy's Prime Minister Mr Silvio Berlusconi was forced to make a humiliating apology for telling journalists who asked about the anti-terror drive that Western civilisation was "superior" to Islam and would conquer it.
Elsewhere in the US, civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson said he was leaning against travelling to Afghanistan for discussions with the Taliban about bin Laden, but he had made no final decision.
Meanwhile a US spokesman said Sudan has arrested extremists suspected of links with international terrorism and given the United States information on their activities.
The US rewarded Sudan by allowing the UN Security Council to lift largely symbolic UN sanctions imposed on Sudan after militants tried to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1995.
AFP