Marines face up to 20,000 al Qaeda

The al Qaeda terrorist network has been rebuilt in Pakistan, western strategists fear, and up to 20,000 fighters are about to mount a new summer offensive across southern Afghanistan. This is the main reason that some 300 troops of the Royal Marines' 45 Commando battle group have been ordered into action in Paktia province south of the town of Khost, one of the main strongholds of the remaining Taliban army and al Qaeda fighters in southern Afghanistan. The Royal

Marines were expected only to declare themselves "operationally ready" this week, and had not expected to go into battle until the end of the month. About half the total force of 1700 has still to arrive at Bagram air base.

They are expected to be there by the end of this week, complete with engineer and artillery units, with two batteries of 105mm light guns.

A force of Royal Marines was ordered into action at the weekend following an attack on the main US forward base at Khost. An American road patrol was fired on in the same area earlier last week, and a C-130 Spectre gunship was called in to disperse the attackers.

Rockets have been found in Kabul, set up on a homemade launcher and ready to be fired at international peacekeepers of ISAF (International Support and Assistance Force).

For three months American and Pakistan intelligence has noticed an upsurge in e-mail traffic from cyber caf?s across northern Pakistan - the biggest clue that al Qaeda is reforming there following its exit from Afghanistan at the end of last year. Al Qaeda is known to use email and the internet to communicate with its affiliates in more than a dozen countries.

This has a huge irony because both al Qaeda and Taliban propaganda hold that computers are part of the decadence of the infidel West. The chance discovery by Wall Street Journal reporters of two personal computers in a house abandoned by al Qaeda in Kabul last November show how much the organisation relied on cyber technology.

The hard disk contained files of records of new recruits, training and weapons technology - among the files was one thought to be the itinerary from Britain to the Middle East of shoe bomber Richard Reid.

One of the main responsibilities of the Royal Marines is to stem the flow of fighters across the frontier into Paktia province, which has seen continuous fighting since the start of the year.

The Royal Marines are understood to have been designated their own broad Tactical Area of Operations by the Americans, and 45 Commando is expected to be involved in operations until June at least - when another commando group could replace them.

Al Qaeda and the remains of the Taliban armies have a force of 10-20,000. At the start of the fighting in October, the Taliban and their allies had nearly 70,000 fighters in Afghanistan - of which only a small proportion were killed or wounded, or deserted.

The Taliban and al Qaeda appear to have picked up a powerful new ally in former Mujahideen commander Gulbadin Hikmatyar and his Hizbi-IIslami movement.

Hikmatyar was once the most feared of the Mujahideen commanders - and is held responsible for much of the destruction of Kabul when his rival Mujahideen commanders took control between 1992 and 1996.

ON 28 March, Pakistani police commandos supported by FBI agents arrested Palestinian Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan. He is believed to be the highest ranking member of the al Qaeda command captured so far.

Zubaydah is suspected of some involvement in the planning of the attacks of 11 September. The Americans are believed to have taken him first to their staging post in Jacobabad, and may even have taken him to Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay for interrogation. Further police raids in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar have turned up evidence that al Qaeda has an effective underground recruiting network in all major Pakistan cities. American and Pakistani security services have turned up no clue about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri. The latest video released through the al Jazira television station this week appears to be a reediting of footage several months old.

British and American intelligence believe bin Laden and his immediate family entourage are either in the North West Frontier province of Pakistan or hiding out in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan - or he might even be dead.

"It doesn't really matter where he is, because he is only important as a symbol," said Major Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies almanac. "He's certainly not the real commander of al Qaeda now, and hasn't been for some time."

His former ally, Mullah Omar, founder of the Taliban, is a more potent military force. He is thought to be hiding in the north of Helmand province, 150 miles from Kandahar, with his own guerrilla band, between 2,000 and 5,000 strong. He and his force are now as much a target for British and American counter insurgency operations as the elusive bin Laden himself.

US 'to take terror war to Pakistan'