WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD (Islamweb & News Agencies) - U.S. forces massed within striking distance of the landlocked Central Asian country which has been told it will face military action if it fails to hand bin Laden over The United States Sunday stepped up its demands that Afghanistan surrender Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, dismissing protests from the ruling Taliban that it has lost contact with Ben Laden who is now the most wanted man in the world..
``We are not going to be deterred by comments that he may be missing. We don't simply believe it,'' President Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, said.
``The Taliban is going to have to begin to understand it has a very tough choice to make,'' Rice told CNN's ``Late Edition''.
At the Camp David presidential retreat on Sunday, Bush and his wife, Laura, stood in an open field, their hands over their hearts, as Marines in dress uniform hoisted the U.S flag to full staff for the first time since the Sept. 11 strikes.
But prospects that the United States would soon return to normal looked dim as security fears and economic jitters rippled through the country.
Economic analysts warned that global markets looked set for more heavy losses Monday after war fears and dwindling consumer confidence sent U.S. blue chip stocks plunging to their worst weekly loss since the Great Depression.

PHOTO CAPTION:
A U.S. Airforce C-5 Galaxy takes off at the joint U.S.-Spanish airbase of Moron, September 23, 2001. Bush administration officials, mobilizing the U.S. military for an unconventional war against a shadowy foe, dismissed assertions by the Taliban that they had lost sight of Saudi exile Osama bin Laden. But even as Washington rejected the statement by the rulers of Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the Islamic militant might be able to evade the U.S. special operations teams and other forces massing in the region. (Marcelo Del Pozo/Reuters)
- Sep 23 5:32 PM ET