New anthrax attack feared in Pakistan

The current wave of anthrax attacks was feared tonight to have spread beyond the United States to Pakistan - but reports of possible outbreaks in Germany were later clouded in doubt.

The newsroom of Pakistan’s biggest-selling daily paper was sealed off after a letter received 10 days ago tested positive for the disease, sending shock waves through the country.

A government spokesman said there had been a second case in a computer factory or laboratory.

In Germany, officials at first said tests on a letter in the eastern state of Thuringia and two parcels in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein had come back positive for anthrax.

But a federal laboratory in Berlin that conducted secondary tests on the material failed to confirm the bacterium, officials said tonight.

‘‘We have only negative results so far,’’ Health Minister Ulla Schmidt told ARD television. ‘‘There is no evidence of anthrax. We are examining further, but we can call off the alert for the time being.’’

The Pakistan case, at the offices of the Urdu-language daily Jang newspaper in Karachi, raised fears that it was in retaliation for the government’s support for the United States-led bombing of Afghanistan.

The authorities, already under growing pressure from militant Islamists, sought to play down the incident, saying that new tests would be carried out by the National Institute of Health.

It came the day after Osama bin Laden denounced the government of General Pervez Musharraf for standing ‘‘under the banner of the cross’’ with Britain and America.

There were anti-Musharraf protests following Friday prayers in the cities of Lahore, Karachi and Quetta, with the largest, at Mardan, attracting 10,000 demonstrators.

In Washington, FBI director Robert Mueller said they still did not know who carried out the US anthrax attacks which have left four people dead and six infected with the deadly inhaled version of the disease.

‘‘We have not received as many tips or leads as we would like,’’ he said.

President George Bush said the bombing campaign against Afghanistan was unravelling bin Laden’s al Qaida network. But he warned the public to be patient.

‘‘This is not an instant gratification war,’’ he said at a White House question-and-answer session. ‘‘We’re going to get him and them.’’

At the Penatagon, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff director of operations, Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem, admitted bin Laden was proving ‘‘elusive’’ but insisted that he would be found.

‘‘We have the means. It is a matter of time,’’ he told a news conference.

‘‘Do we see when we are going to get him? No. Do we know how close we are? That is a very difficult question to ask. I am sure there are times we feel very close, other times it is a shadow.’’

He added: ‘‘The noose is tightening. The country is getting smaller.’’

Admiral Stufflebeem said attempts to deploy extra US special forces troops to work with the Northern Alliance and help target air strikes had so far foundered because of the weather.

‘‘Within the last 24 hours it would be fair to report that the weather has been hampering our efforts but we won’t stop. The ones who are trying to get in have not yet successfully gotten in,’’ he said.

American B-52 bombers again pounded Taliban front lines north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, in the heaviest US attack yet.

Rebel Northern Alliance fighters said some 60 bombs fell by midday, while in the afternoon they counted a further six bombing runs by the B-52s.

Alliance commanders, who have claimed that they could mount an offensive within days, estimated that 13 Taliban tanks had been destroyed along with heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons.