Blair briefing on peace force

Tony Blair is to brief MPs today about plans for a British-led peace force for Afghanistan, which is now expected to set out at the end of the week.

No final decision will be taken about the shape and terms of the force until the reconnaissance party led by Major General John McColl returns form Kabul tomorrow night. Al Qaeda has been destroyed in Afghanistan, the American Secretary of State Colin Powell has claimed, but others in the Bush administration have warned against declaring "a premature victory".

British and American intelligence analysts are trying to assess whether notes found in an al Qaeda training house in Kandahar indicate that the organisation was planning to bomb the financial heart of the City of London.

The notes, written in good English, were discovered by British journalists in Kandahar last week after they were taken to the house by local residents. It appeared to be an instruction on how to make a remote-controlled bomb similar to those which blew up the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998, killing 224 people.

However, there is some doubt about some of the material purporting to come from al Qaeda found in houses in Kunduz, Kabul and Kandahar. Diagrams of a nuclear device found in Kabul were crude copies of material easily accessible on the internet. Western intelligence agencies have been accused of distributing material to win support for the war effort in Afghanistan.

Concern is growing about the number of foreign nationals known to have been involved with al Qaeda. A list found after the battle for the northern city of

Kunduz revealed the names of four British citizens - Saed Shah Mohammad of Leeds, Rahim Khan and Saheb Khan from Hounslow and Abdul Khalid Hussain of Bradford. It is not known whether they survived the battles.

At least 200 British citizens are now thought to have taken up arms with the Taliban and al Qaeda. Anwar Khan of Burnley was taken prisoner in northern Afghanistan and Jawed Farouqi, 56, from Wembley has been arrested in Kabul.

An American, John Walker, 20, was caught in the prison battle in the Qala i Janghi fort outside Mazar-i-Sharif. He could face charges in the United States. An Australian, David Hicks, 26, has also been interrogated by American agents in Mazar.

The military team led by General McColl will continue discussions with members of the new interim government in Kabul about a UN peace force being sent there at the end of the week. The interim defence minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim has said that no more than 1,000 peacekeepers are needed, though British planners believe the force would have to be about 5,000 to 6,000-strong because of the logistical difficulties in supporting and supplying them.

General McColl is leading a team of about a dozen, including officers from France, Italy and Canada, who are likely to be the major contributors to the force. With him are Brigadier Barney White-Spunner of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which will supply the headquarters and the bulk of the British troops, and Brigadier Peter Wall, a former commander of 16 Air Assault, and key planning director for the UK's Joint Rapid Reaction Force. The force is expected to be in Kabul for the inauguration of the new government on 22 December.