The U.S. military is placing small teams in a growing number of U.S. embassies to gather anti-terror intelligence and to prepare for potential killing missions, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The effort is part of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's two-year drive to give the military a more active intelligence role in the campaign against terrorism, according to the report.

Under the plan, small teams of the U.S. military's Special Operations personnel, sometimes just one or two, have been sent to more than a dozen embassies in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America, where terrorists are thought to be operating, planning attacks, raising money or seeking a safe haven.

The teams' assignment is to gather information to assist in planning anti-terror missions, and to help local militaries conduct counterterrorism missions of their own.

The new mission will become a major responsibility for the U.S. military's fast-growing Special Operations Command, which was authorized by U.S. President George W. Bush to take the lead in military operations against terrorists.

Its new task could give the command considerable clout in organizing the nation's overall intelligence efforts.

The command oversees the Army Green Berets and Rangers, the Navy Seals, the Marines and special Air Force crews that carry out the most specialized or secret military missions.

The Special Operations Command reports to Rumsfeld, and falls outside the orbit controlled by John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, who oversees all of the nation's intelligence agencies.

The military's expanding role in anti-terror intelligence gathering has drawn opposition from traditional intelligence agencies like the CIA, where some officials have viewed it as a provocative expansion into what has been their turf.

Source: Xinhua