-Caveat Lector- http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=1694662001
WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Iran to aid US attack on Iraq as al-Qaeda crumbles Nick Drainey PLANS for US air attacks and ground assaults on Iraq to open a new phase in the war against terrorism were at the centre of a Washington power struggle last night as al-Qaeda’s last major stronghold collapsed in Afghanistan. The New Yorker magazine claims Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi has delivered the Bush administration a war plan using Iranian help in an offensive against Iraq "which calls not only for bombing but for the deployment of thousands of American Special Forces troops". The news came as US forces failed to find Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan despite claiming they had caught him sending radio broadcasts to his troops in the Tora Bora region. Chalabi has won permission to open an office for his party, the Iraqi National Congress, in the Iranian capital Tehran, according to the New Yorker. The magazine, which is published today, also claims the move has put Pentagon officials "at odds with the State Department". One senior Bush administration official is quoted as referring to Chalabi and his supporters as "a bunch of half-assed people to send foreigners into combat". As the US war commander for Afghanistan, General Tommy Franks, said, it was not actually certain if bin Laden had been heard broadcasting to his troops in the Tora Bora as previously claimed. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State last night admitted: "We don’t know where he is." The fruitless search in the east of Afghanistan apparently ended as US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in the country to meet the new interim prime minister, Hamid Karzai, at Bagram airport, outside the capital, Kabul. Mr Rumsfeld is the first senior US official to arrive in the country since the Taleban regime was stopped. His visit though was tarnished with news that the main US target in the war against terrorism was still at large and no-one knows where he is. With the Tora Bora seemingly empty of senior Taleban leaders, the US is now trying to find other small hideouts in the mountainous country where bin Laden and Taleban supremo Mullah Omar could be. They are believed to be in the western Shindand area, the Halmand province north-west of Kandahar and the southern city itself. Three US marines were injured by a landmine yesterday at the newly opened airport in Kandahar. All are stable but one could lose a leg. The reopening by the US of Kandahar airport to military flights further strengthens its grip on Afghanistan. American forces have been scouring training camps near Kandahar for traces of chemical and biological weapons material. Documents reportedly found by a Sunday newspaper in one of the camps detail planned terror attacks in London. The information includes instruction on how to build a remote controlled van bomb, similar to those used by al-Qaeda in Kenya and Tanzania, which would be targeted on the financial Moorgate area of the capital. Despite the fall of Kandahar, some fear civil unrest will break out in the former Taleban heartland. Four out of 13 armed Arabs holed up in a hospital in the city escaped early yesterday, apparently with the blessing of their guards, according to the hospital’s head nurse, Ghulam Mohammed Afghan. The guards are loyal to tribal leader Mullah Naqibullah, a fierce rival of Gul Agha, the governor. Mr Afghan predicted a battle if Mr Agha’s men tried to seal off the hospital. On his visit to Bagram yesterday, Mr Rumsfeld met the interim prime minister in an upstairs room in a wrecked Soviet-era aircraft hangar, with burnt skeletons of destroyed Russian-made MiG fighter jets littering the tarmac outside. He told him: "The United States coveted no territory. We were here for the sole purpose of expelling terrorists from the country and establishing a government that would not harbour terrorism." Mr Karzai said the Afghans were thankful for US help in battling terrorism and the Taleban. Mr Rumsfeld told US troops at the airport that he expected an international peacekeeping force for Afghanistan of up to 5,000 troops would be put in place sometime after Mr Karzai is due to take over on 22 December. He warned that the US role in the country would not be over until Mullah Omar and bin Laden were found. "We’re not leaving till we get the job done," he added. Britain has said that it is happy to lead a peacekeeping force and troop figures are expected to be announced this week. Discussions in London at the weekend between military officials from Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Jordan had been "very successful", Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman said. The spokesman also dismissed reports that troops in Afghanistan would overstretch the British military presence in other areas such as Macedonia and Sierra Leone. The last of the Tora Bora caves fell amid the deaths of 200 al-Qaeda fighters and the capture of 25 others. "This is the last day of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan," said Mohammed Zaman, the eastern alliance defence chief. "There is no more need for American bombing. Our men have the situation under control." Smiling eastern alliance forces chanted "Al-Qaeda is finished! Al-Qaeda is finished!" as US planes continued to circle the area but halted airstrikes. The White Mountains of the Tora Bora were the last major pocket of al-Qaeda resistance in the country but Mr Zaman said he had no information on the whereabouts of bin Laden, who many in the forested mountains believed was with the fighters. US officials said they picked up his voice last week on short-range radio in the area, but other officials believe he is elsewhere in Afghanistan or may have slipped out of the country. A cave where alliance commanders had thought bin Laden might be hiding was the last major al-Qaeda holdout. "There were only six people. One was killed by our forces and the others were captured," said another alliance commander, Hazrat Ali. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! 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