U.S. Defense Officials Discuss Widening Hunt for Al Qaeda

Top defense officials met Friday to plot better ways to hunt down Al Qaeda terrorists, especially covert commando missions to capture and kill leaders of the scattered network, officials said.

In a recent memo, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld asked Gen. Charles R. Holland of the U.S. Special Operations Command and other senior military leaders to come up with new ideas for tracking down Osama bin Laden’s network, two officials said on condition of anonymity.

The review comes in the 10th month of the campaign in Afghanistan, where only remnants of enemy fighters are believed to remain.

Special Forces troops have played a key role in the campaign that smashed Al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan and routed the country’s former Taliban regime.

In meetings Friday with Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard B. Myers and other senior uniformed leaders, Holland was presenting a plan he is developing for covert missions aimed at attacking terrorist cells worldwide, one official said.

It could include operations by the Army’s elite Delta Force, Navy SEALs and others acting on intelligence gained about terror cells around the globe, one official said.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke declined to talk about Holland’s ideas and deflected questions about whether this meant the Pentagon was trying to intensify the hunt.

“We’ve got aggressive efforts underway all the time, but we are constantly looking at ways to improve our capabilities, to make better use of our resources,” she said.

Rumsfeld “wants everyone to understand the sense of urgency about what we’re doing here, that the threats out there are very, very real,” Clarke said.