[This is London - 3 October 2001]: The United States and Britain yesterday called off military strikes against terrorist targets in Afghanistan at the last minute.

Washington officials say today that a severe attack of last-minute cold feet by some key Arab members of the coalition caused President Bush to postpone the operation.

The waverers are Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Oman, and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is embarking on an urgent mission today to strengthen nerves in these countries.

Prime Minister Tony Blair is also about to undertake a hasty visit to the region. Saudi Arabia's support is especially vital, because Allied aircraft and commanders need its base facilities.

Two senior US officials have told reporters that until yesterday the Saudis were firm in their offer to provide assistance for strikes, including use of a state-of-the-art command centre at the Prince Royal Sultan Air Force Base.

Then the situation changed. One US official told Knight Newspapers: "That is no longer true. We fear there is something deeper here."

Mr Rumsfeld's trip to the Middle East is intended to mend these unexpected ruptures.

Downing Street, meanwhile, confirmed Mr Blair will be departing on a mission tomorrow but refused, on security grounds, to be drawn on any of the detail. Amid clear unease over the advance leaks of the trip, a spokesman dismissed all reports as "speculationî maintaining that some of the suggested calling points for the Prime Minister were simply wrong.

Mr Rumsfeld's tour, which includes Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt and Uzbekistan, is being compared to the stage-setting trip made by Dick Cheney, then Defence Secretary, to the Gulf just before the start of Desert Storm.

This time there is more at stake. Near the top of Mr Rumsfeld's list of priorities is to talk his way to an agreement with Uzbekistan, on the northern border of Afghanistan, to use the country as a staging area for the attack.

Uzbekistan is now regarded as a potential key asset in the coming showdown, but is rated the coalition's single most fragile link.

Highly attractive to the US are the number of abandoned air bases there, once used by the Soviet Union.

This will be Mr Rumsfeld's first face-to-face meeting with the ruling regime there. It has demanded that the US negotiate a complete Status of Forces Agreement before it will permit the use of its military bases - an unrealistic condition which could be tangled up in legal knots for years.

The trip, undertaken at the request of President Bush, is expected to last three days.

Oman, also skittish, is regarded as an important support base for a ground incursion. US special operations forces can be flown there and then put on amphibious invasion ships.

US officials are not sure whether this is a case of lastminute jitters, or " something more serious".

One notable omission on Mr Rumsfeld's itinerary is Pakistan. "The last thing Pakistan needs is a high profile visit by a US Secretary of Defence," said a Pentagon official.

The country is contending with ferocious anti-American demonstrations, with Mr Bus burned in effigy and hordes shouting: "Death to America! Let Americans come here to be buried!"

Washington officials advised reporters not to assume military action was only hours away. They stressed that Mr Bush will act only when he is convinced, by Mr Rumsfeld and others, that "all the pieces are in place". Such action will come "at various stages and times", they said. The President himself told reporters there is "no calendar" for the start of hostilities.

MANCHESTER, Tenn. (Reuters - 3 Oct, 11:46am) - Greyhound Lines suspended bus services across the United States for several hours on Wednesday after at least 10 people were killed in a crash when a passenger apparently slit the driver's throat.

Both the U.S. Justice Department (news - web sites) and the U.S. Department of Transportation said initial indications were that the incident was not related to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Greyhound, the largest provider of intercity bus transportation in the United States, suspended travel for one day after those attacks.

It announced another suspension after Wednesday's crash but later said that services would resume at 1 p.m.

The bus driver survived in Wednesday morning's crash and was being treated for cuts on his neck, according to a Tennessee hospital. A passenger told a television station earlier that the bus driver's throat was slit in the attack.

The crash appears to have been ``a random incident not related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,'' said Dave Longo, a spokesperson for the Federal Motorcarrier Administration, a division of the U.S. Transportation Department.

But he said there were conflicting reports ``and we are waiting for more details to come in from the field.''

Justice Department spokeswoman Susan Dryden said ``at this time we don't believe it was terrorist related.'' One official at that department said the man who carried out the attack was carrying a Croatian passport. It was not known if he survived the crash.

The FBI (news - web sites) said it had sent a team to investigate.

Greyhound, which announced the death toll, said it had ordered the shutdown ``as a precaution'' and said stranded passengers were being taken ``to the nearest safe location.'' Several hours later Greyhound spokeswoman Karen Chapman announced that services nationwide would resume at 1 p.m.

Greyhound carries about 25 million passengers a year as the last remaining nationwide bus service.

The incident occurred on Interstate highway 24 about 60 miles (100 km) southeast of Nashville. There were 36 passengers on board and the injured were taken to local hospitals.

A woman who was on the bus told a Nashville television station that the man who attacked the driver had been acting strangely, repeatedly asking what time it was. She said he slashed the driver's throat, causing him to lose control of the bus which overturned.

Bobby Couch, chief executive officer of the Manchester Medical Center, told Reuters the driver was being treated for cuts on the neck and was in stable condition.

Greyhound spokeswoman Kirstin Parsley told CNN police had not confirmed the passenger's account of the attack.

Local broadcast reports said some of the passengers were airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center and others to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The service suspension stranded passengers from coast to coast at a time when the suicide airline hijackings had driven many passenger to alternative means of transportation, such as the bus and train.

At New York City's Port Authority Bus Terminal, Greyhound's largest service hub, passengers and bus drivers alike were seeking information.

``I'm trying to figure out how I can get home now,'' said R. L. Sned, a Greyhound driver.

Peter Pan Bus Lines Inc., a New England regional bus company that shares ticketing and gates with Greyhound in the Port Authority bus terminal, said it is going ahead with departures to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C.

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/10/437.htm