The US is poised to dispatch a wave of elite Marines into Afghanistan, in a final bid to flush out and kill Osama bin Laden.
Some 2,000 troops -- the largest deployment of Special Forces since the Vietnam War -- will be sent in, according to Pentagon sources. The Marines will be supplemented by units from the Navy Seals and shadowy Delta Force, specially trained for search-and-destroy missions.
The order comes within days of an admission by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that he would prefer to see bin Laden dead than brought to trial alive. Sources said that the new units' orders are to shoot bin Laden on sight.
Intelligence reports indicate that he is hidden away somewhere in the northeast of the country near Jalalabad, in a jagged terrain known as Tora Bora, unless he has slipped the net and crossed the border into Pakistan to hide among sympathetic Pashtun tribesmen.
Some of the new Special Forces and Marine troops tasked to root him out remain aboard ships in the Arabian sea, while others are already massing in Pakistani bases -- supposedly for use only for search-and-rescue missions -- ready to move into Afghanistan to set up a string of bridgeheads any day now. A host of communications and sabotage experts have also arrived, along with attack helicopters.
The forces will comb the ravaged ground and be ready to engage the enemy in the war's new, guerrilla phase, facing the possibility of a "Holy War" fought by an entrenched resistance in the southern mountains.
Meanwhile, Pentagon sources caution that al-Qaeda may already be working to regroup outside Afghanistan, principally in Somalia or Sudan. Sources suggest that cadres are being regrouped by bin Laden's deputy, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri. Some intelligence reports say al-Zawahiri might have slipped out of Afghanistan some time ago.
Bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and third-in-command Mohamed Atef -- now killed -- split up shortly after the bombing intensified and the Northern Alliance began to take territory in earnest.
The US is drawing up contingency plans for strikes against both Somalia and Sudan, under President George Bush's pledge that any country harboring terrorists will be regarded as an enemy -- to the alarm of both.
Somalia makes an attractive venue for a regrouped al-Qaeda without bin Laden.
With Yemen and other Arab countries determined to avoid US wrath and desperate to close their borders to extremists, the Mogadishu government may not be able to exercise the same authority.
Moreover, the country offers land access to Egypt -- source of a significant group within al-Qaeda.
Detailed plans have also been drawn up for intervention in Iraq. They advocate an uprising by Shia and Kurdish rebels, which would enjoy weighty air support by US bombers and fighters. US ground troops would be deployed to defend the rich oil fields around the port of Basra.
Those in Washington arguing for an attack on Iraq have reportedly won over a crucial ally in the past two weeks: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, normally seen as a close ally of Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is bitterly opposed to such a move.
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