U.S. anti-terror plans see growing role of special forces, report says

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has approved the military's most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism around the world and retaliate more rapidly and decisively in the case of another major terrorist attack on the United States, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Quoting defense officials, the Post said the campaign plan for the global war on terrorism and two subordinate plans, approved within the past month, envision a significantly expanded role for the military, in particular, a growing force of elite Special Operations troops, in continuous operations to combat terrorism outside of war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Details of the plans are secret, the report said.

The plans, developed over about three years by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), reflect a beefing up of the Pentagon's involvement in domains traditionally handled by the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department, according to the report.

The SOCOM has dispatched small teams of Army Green Berets and other Special Operations troops to U.S. embassies in about 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America, where they do operational planning and intelligence gathering to enhance the ability to conduct military operations where the United States is not at war, the report said.

In a classified order last year, the Pentagon gained the leeway to inform -- rather than gain the approval of -- the U.S. ambassador before conducting military operations in a foreign country, several administration officials were cited as saying.

The plans cover a wide range of overt and clandestine military activities -- such as man-hunting and intelligence gathering on terrorist networks; attacks on terrorist training camps and recruiting efforts; and partnering with foreign militaries to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries. Together, they amount to an assignment of responsibilities to different military commands to conduct what the Pentagon envisions as a "long war" against terrorism, the report said.

Source: Xinhua