President Bush said Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, took a "bold position" in agreeing to help the United States track down those behind last week's attacks.

But Musharraf is struggling to sell support for the United States to sceptical Pakistanis. It's an uphill battle. A public opinion poll showed the vast majority of people oppose Pakistan joining any attack on its former allies in Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement. And street demonstrations against U.S. policy are growing by the day.

A tentative ceasefire between the Israelis and Palestinians is generally holding, although sporadic fighting marred the effort to silence the guns on both sides after a year of violence.

The truce called on Tuesday appeared to have started taking effect 24 hours later. Violence has dropped dramatically despite some fighting in the divided West Bank city of Hebron and southern Gaza late on Wednesday. It was unclear if the violence had reduced enough to meet Israel's conditions for 48 hours of quiet before truce talks could be held between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Israeli media reports said the two could meet as early as Thursday evening, but nothing had been finalised.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, senior Islamic clerics issued an edict on Thursday 20 September 2001 urging the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, to leave whenever possible.

"To avoid the current tumult and also future similar suspicions, the high council of the honorable ulema (clerics) recommends to the Islamic Emirate (of Afghanistan) to persuade Osama bin Laden to leave Afghanistan whenever possible," the Taliban information minister said.

The edict was issued after a two-day meeting of the religious leaders. Bin Laden should find another place to live, the verdict said.