The US Secretary of Defence, Mr Don Rumsfeld, has categorically denied a report he had told NATO that, after Afghanistan, the US intended to move against Somalia. Mr Rumsfeld said that suggestions by a German source were "flat wrong" and "nonsense".
The only time he had mentioned Somalia to NATO, he said, was in a list of countries whose previous harbouring of terrorism meant they were potential subjects of US attention. He denied any US military were in Somalia or Yemen. Mr Rumsfeld also said the US has a number of senior al-Qaeda leaders in captivity among their 15 prisoners at Kandahar airport and five on the USS Peleliu in the Arabian Sea. He added that the Pakistan Army had captured "very large numbers - hundreds" of al-Qaeda fighters fleeing across the border.
Commenting on an assessment by a senior FBI officer that the Afghan campaign had left 70 per cent of the al-Qaeda capability internationally intact, a skittish Mr Rumsfeld said he had "enormous admiration for someone who could reach that form of mathematical precision. I certainly can't."
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