US expels Russian diplomats

The United States has expelled several Russian diplomats suspected of being spies.

A US official said the action was in retaliation for the alleged espionage an FBI agent conducted on behalf of Moscow.

The official said fewer than 10 diplomats were ordered out of the country by Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The Russian ambassador to the United States was summoned to the State Department on Wednesday and told by Secretary Powell that the suspected spies had to leave the country.

The move is a reaction to the arrest last month of FBI agent Robert Hanssen, a counterintelligence officer charged with passing information to the Soviet Union and Russia for 15 years.

The United States alleges that Hanssen compromised extensive US intelligence-gathering operations, including a tunnel dug beneath the Russian embassy in Washington.

Hanssen, 56, was a 25-year FBI veteran and counterintelligence expert. He is accused of giving Moscow 6,000 pages of secret US documents since 1985 in exchange for than $1.4m in cash and diamonds.

He was arrested after authorities said he dropped off a package of documents at a Virginia park for his Russian contacts

A 100-page indictment accused Hanssen of comprising, among other things, "an entire technical programme of enormous value, expense and importance to the United States government".