US President George W. Bush (R) meets with Vice President Dick Cheney (2L), CIA Director George Tenet (L) and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in the Oval Office after informing the nation that air strikes were made against the Taliban on Sunday. Picture released on Monday.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair (L) chairs a special Cabinet meeting next to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott (2L) in Downing Street ahead of Parliament being recalled this evening on Sunday. Blair used an interview with an Arabic satellite television station to rebut claims by Osama bin Laden that the attacks on Afghanistan were aimed at the Islamic world.

Northern Alliance forces fire a rocket at Taliban positions during fighting about 45 km north of Kabul before dawn on Sunday. The fighting took place after the USA and Britain initiated attacks against Taliban targets in Afghanistan with missiles and bombs.

A Japanese woman watches television news reports showing video images of Osama bin Laden calling on "every Muslim to rise to defend his religion" on Monday at an electronics shop in Tokyo. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, currently on a one-day visit to China, announced earlier on Monday strong support for the US-British military action against Afghanistan and ordered a tightening of security at key strategic installations.

Britain's Secretary of State for Defence Geoffrey Hoon speaks to journalists at a news conference at the Ministry of Defence in central London on Monday. Hoon stated that allied air and missile raids hit 30 Taliban targets in Afghanistan on Sunday at the start of what will be a sustained campaign.

A Nothern Alliance soldier watches over the town of Dashti Kola in northern Afghanistan near the front line on Monday. Kabul decided on Monday to resist US attacks, saying the Afghan people would sacrifice all for honour even as officials counted the dead and thousands fled the Capital fearing another night of thunderous air raids. However, the chief target of the attacks, fugitive militant Osama bin Laden, emerged unscathed, officials said.

Afghans clear away the remains of a destroyed home on Monday after missile strikes hit central Kabul, Afghanistan Sunday night.

Protesters gather around a burning tyre in Quetta on Monday where shops remained closed and traffic was disrupted in protest against US attack on Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Police try to hit a protester as he runs away during a demonstration in Peshawar on Monday. Police used tear gas to break up several protests in the northwestern city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border, as angry students and some Afghan refugees tried to demonstrate against the attacks.

A young Pakistani protester holds a brick during demonstrations in Peshawar on Monday. Anti-American protesters gathered at a mosque on Monday to protest the attack on Afghanistan.

British journalist Yvonne Ridley (C) speaks to a journalist in Torkham, near the Pakistani border with Afghanistan, after her release from a 10-day detention in Afghanistan on Sunday. Afghanistan's ruling Taliban had arrested Ridley, a reporter for London’s Sunday Express, on September 28 for entering the country illegally.

US Colonel Bob Allardice, overall humanitarian mission commander, shows a "Humanitarian Daily Ration" package of food as he stands in front of one of the C-17 Globemaster III which participated and just returned from a distribution mission to the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Monday. The US Defense Department said they dropped some 37,500 of the HDR packages last night over Afghanistan.

Afghan boy eats bread in a refugee camp near the town Hojabohhaudin in northern Afghanistan near the front line on Monday.

Afghans leave the Capital in the aftermath of US strikes on on Monday. The United Nations refugee agency said on Monday it would take days and possibly weeks before it knew of a large exodus of people from Afghanistan after the attacks by the United States. — Reuters photos