Raid on al Qaeda hideout kills 12

WASHINGTON - Special forces in Yemen have carried out raids against suspected al Qaeda members in a widening of the campaign against Osama bin Laden's network.

Sources said the United States provided names of the suspected members to Yemen.

Up to 12 people were killed and 22 injured in a firefight between tribesmen and Yemeni special forces as they launched an operation to find five individuals, in the al-Halsun region of Marib province, east of the capital, Sanaa.

Despite more than two hours of bombardment and an exchange of tank, artillery and machinegun fire, the special forces soldiers did not trace the men.

Sources in Yemen told Reuters that at least one of the men being sought was on a list of suspected al Qaeda members passed to the Yemeni President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, during his visit to Washington last month.

The sources said the operation in Yemen was carried out after the Abida tribesmen refused to hand-over the individuals despite two days of negotiations.

The US has long identified Yemen, the birthplace of bin Laden's father - as a country with a number of al Qaeda cells. The network is believed to have been behind the bomb attack on the USS Cole in October 2,000 while docked at the southern Yemeni port of Aden, resulting in the death of 17 American sailors.

Precisely what involvement the US may have had in yesterday's operation is unclear, but in October a US special forces commander met with his Yemeni counterparts to discuss military cooperation between the two countries.

Yemen said this month it was hunting down two senior tribesmen that the US suspects of being key agents of al Qaeda.

Also yesterday, key members of the United Nations Security Council agreed that a resolution authorising a multinational force to help provide security in Afghanistan must give the soldiers the right to take military action if necessary.

With a tentative agreement among the five permanent council members that the initial authorisation will be for six months, diplomats said the text of the resolution could be circulated to the full 15-member council today - with a possible vote tomorrow.

Britain, which will be leading the force, said yesterday that up to 200 British marines were expected to be deployed on the streets of Kabul by Sunday, when a 30-member interim government led by Hamid Karzai is scheduled to take power for six months.

Meanwhile, Nato is to prepare for battle well beyond its own borders, ready to carry war to those who, as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned yesterday, may now target Europe after strikes on New York and Washington.

Ministers of the 19-nation bloc met in Brussels and agreed to review defence planning on both sides of the North Atlantic in the light of the September 11 attacks.

Secretary-General Lord George Robertson called on them to face up to the cost of revamping an organisation created in the Cold War to fight major land battles in Europe and which has been left largely on the sidelines as Washington has called on individual allies for limited help in its military campaign in Afghanistan.

"We agreed to increase the proportion of forces that can be deployed and sustained in operations far beyond Alliance territory.

"Our security environment must now be seen in a fundamentally different - and considerably darker - light."

Until now, the farthest Nato troops have been deployed has been just beyond Alliance frontiers, in the Balkans.

Warning of "tumultuous decades ahead", Rumsfeld said: "The only way to deal with a terrorist network that is global is to go after it where it is."

"As we look at the devastation they unleashed in the US, contemplate the destruction they could wreak in New York, or London, or Paris, of Berlin with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons."

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