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WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (AFP) - Afghanistan's Taliban militia, besieged by massing US forces, was further isolated Tuesday as Saudi Arabia snapped ties with Kabul and Washington fired its first real shot in its new war by freezing the US assets of suspected terrorists.

The Taliban's isolation became all but complete when Saudi Arabia said it had broken off diplomatic ties with Kabul, leaving Pakistan as the only nation to recognise the fundamentalist regime, believed to be sheltering the mastermind behind the US terror strikes.

"The Saudi government announces that all relations with the Taliban are cut," said a statement carried by the official SPA news agency. Riyadh followed the United Arab Emirates' lead in breaking ties with teh fundamentalist militia.

Japan meanwhile heeded Washington's call for the world to target terrorists' sources of funding, with Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa saying that Tokyo would freeze the assets of suspected terrorists.

"We are now preparing to freeze such assets in Japan," he said.

Osama bin Laden, the Afghanistan-based prime suspect for the US terror blitz two weeks ago, on Monday reportedly portrayed the looming conflict as a "holy war" war between the United States and Muslims.

The United States, still reeling from its September 11 kamikaze terror strikes, on Monday sought boosted legal powers to combat terrorism at home while banning flights by crop-duster aircraft amid fears that they may be used by extremists to spread chemical or biological weapons here.

It also stepped up its diplomatic offensive aimed at drawing the world into an anti-terror coalition that President George W. Bush vowed to forge, winning a key victory when Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged Moscow's help.

But in Afghanistan, the Taliban's spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar -- who earlier welcomed bin Laden to his country -- was defiant, warning Washington it could not stamp out terrorism as long as US troops remained in the Middle East and while it supported Israel.

US warplanes, ships and troops streamed into staging areas close to Afghanistan in central Asia ahead of an expected series of attacks aimed at flushing bin Laden and his cronies from Afghanistan's lunar landscape.

But bin Laden, a Saudi-born extremist who Washington holds responsible for the attacks on New York and the Pentagon that left nearly 7,000 dead or missing, on Monday urged Pakistan to "repel the US crusader forces" poised to strike at Afghanistan, according to Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite television.

"We incite our Muslim brethren in Pakistan to prevent the American crusader forces from invading Pakistan and Afghanistan with all means at their disposal," the station said, quoting from a fax purported to be from bin Laden.

The authenticity of the fax was impossible to verify.

The Taliban, who have given bin Laden refuge since 1996, were meanwhile organising a general mobilisation. The militia's defence minister, Mullah Obaidullah, said in a statement Monday that 300,000 Afghans had been deployed in strategic positions, and ordered the nation to prepare to wage a "holy war." Analysts said the Taliban had nowhere near this number of fighters.

"The United States should not harbour any misunderstanding," Taliban leader Mullah Omar said in a statement released to a pro-Taliban press agency. "It cannot come out of the current crisis if it kills me or Osama."

"If America wants to end terrorism it should withdraw its forces from the Gulf and end its partiality on the Palestine issue," he said, giving his backing to bin Laden's stated goals.

But US President Bush was pushing on with his multi-pronged campaign to destroy bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and other organisations Washington describes as "terrorist."

Thousands of troops, along with bombers and naval battle groups, were heading to undisclosed locations.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the aim was to get into position so that when Bush decides on military action, "we'll be able to salute and go do it."

A British task force of 24,000 troops and at least 18 warships was also en route for exercises in Oman and could find itself called into action.

Authorities in Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet, said they were willing to take part in an international campaign to fight terrorism, but that they were still discussing whether to allow US planes to use their territory.

The Gulf monarchies are close US allies and have granted broad military facilities, notably since the 1990-1991 Gulf War. But the issue of foreign troops on the Arabian peninsula, the cradle of Islam, is highly explosive.

Bush on Monday, also made what he called "a major thrust" in his offensive, ordering the freezing of US assets linked to bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and other "terrorist" organisations and telling foreign banks to follow suit or risk having their own US assets blocked.

He said his executive order "puts the financial world on notice: If you do business with terrorists, if you support or sponsor them, you will not do business with the United States of America."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday he would allow some US flights to use his country's airspace "for humanitarian missions in the regions where anti-terrorist missions are conducted".

He said Russia may also participate in search and rescue missions and was willing to provide military supplies to anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have said they, too, would open their airspace to "humanitarian" flights, while Ukraine also said it would allow access to some US military flights.

Officials in Uzbekistan said US surveillance planes already were deployed in the Central Asian nation.

In Washington, Bush was preparing to meet Japanese Premier Junichiro Koizumi on Tuesday and for a scheduled crucial meeting Friday with Jordan's King Abdullah II.

A European Union delegation meanwhile arrived in Islamabad ahead of talks designed to bolster Pakistan's participation in the anti-terror coalition.

Meanwhile, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday that governments should prepare for possible attacks with biological or chemical weapons.

"We must prepare for the possibility that people are deliberately harmed with biological or chemical agents," Gro Harlem Brundtland said in Washington.

The warning came as US authorities, for the second time in two weeks, banned all flights by crop-dusters.

The estimated death toll from the attacks on the United States reached 6,962 Monday as New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said it would be a "miracle" if anyone were still found alive in the rubble.

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