American ground troops in Afghanistan

America has a ‘‘modest’’ number of ground troops in Afghanistan, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said.

During a joint news conference with Britain’s Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon at the Pentagon in Washington last night, Mr Rumsfeld said the United States did not rule out a more extensive ground troop operation.

‘‘We do have a very modest number of ground troops in the country and they are there for liaison purposes,’’ Mr Rumsfeld told the briefing.

Mr Rumsfeld said the troops were in the north of the country and were providing targeting information for air strikes.

Ground troops had also moved in and out of the south of the country.

Mr Hoon told the press conference that Britain did not have ground troops in Afghanistan at this point.

Their comments came as Tony Blair began his latest round of whirlwind international diplomacy.

Today he was pressing Syria’s President Bashar Assad to help control terror groups targeting Israel during talks in Damascus.

The British Prime Minister has consistently maintained that ‘‘re-invigorating’’ the Middle East peace process is a key part of the wider diplomatic strategy in the wake of September 11, with Osama bin Laden claiming the Palestinian cause as a principal justification for his terror campaign.

Syria is regarded as a key influence on groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which claimed responsibility for the recent assassination of Israel’s tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi.

Mr Blair is hoping that President Assad can be persuaded to help rein in the PFLP and other radical Palestinian and Islamist groups committed to violence against Israel.

Mr Blair insisted there was now ‘‘a flood’’ of intelligence proving bin Laden’s guilt for the New York and Washington atrocities, and acknowledged concern at home about the bombing campaign against Afghanistan.

With signs that backing for the US-led bombing campaign against Afghanistan was beginning to weaken on both sides of the Atlantic, the Prime Minister insisted the coalition was fighting on the side of ‘‘justice and right’’.

In an address to the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff, he strongly defended the military strategy, and said that ground force operations would be mounted ‘‘as and when necessary’’.

Today, Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith voiced his own concerns - not about the rightness of the cause, but rather by questioning whether the government is doing enough to explain the rationale behind the military action against Afghanistan.

While emphasising his support for the government’s basic strategy, Mr Duncan Smith, in an article for the Daily Telegraph, claimed it appeared to be losing ‘‘the battle for the hearts and minds of the British people.’’

Meanwhile British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was today visiting Moscow in a further bid to rally support for the Allied war in Afghanistan.

He was saying Russia and the West must build ‘‘a balance of trust’’ to combat global terrorism and was telling the former cold war enemy: ‘‘We have to seize this opportunity.

‘‘These common interests are far more important than whatever differences still lie between us,’’ he was saying.

Speaking last night, neither Mr Rumsfield nor Mr Hoon would be drawn on whether the military offensive would be paused during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Mr Hoon said: ‘‘What I actually said was we must take those sensitivities into account, and we will take them into account. But it does not make sense to indicate up front what might be our military intentions during that period.’’

Mr Rumsfeld added: ‘‘We clearly are interested in the views and opinions and sensitivities ... and we are respectful of those.’’

Earlier, senior British defence sources admitted that they still did not have enough intelligence about the situation inside Afghanistan to be able to put troops in on the ground.

‘‘This is inevitably going to be an intelligence-led operation and we need more. Until we have a full picture of what is going on in the country, we cannot be specific about which course of action we will take,’’ one source said.

Mr Rumsfeld told reporters the US forces in Afghanistan were carrying out support tasks for the ongoing airstrikes.

‘‘They are uniformed military personnel who are assisting with resupply, assisting with communications, liaison, assisting with targeting, and providing the kind of very specific information which is helpful to the air effort,’’ he said.

While the US presence was very small for the time being, it could be expanded.

‘‘It is true we do not have anything like the ground forces we had in World War Two, or in Korea, or in the Gulf War, but nor have we ruled that out,’’ said Mr Rumsfeld.

On Ramadan, which starts in mid-November, Mr Hoon told reporters: ‘‘It wouldn’t make military sense to announce up front what our intentions were during that period.

‘‘It certainly wouldn’t make military sense to afford the Taliban regime, which has been under very considerable pressure in recent times, the opportunity of regrouping, reorganising during a predictable period of time.’’

Mr Hoon said he wanted the Northern Alliance opposition to move into territory held by Taliban forces.

‘‘As part of the pressure that is brought to bear on the Taliban regime we want to see the Northern Alliance regime advancing and taking territory from the Taliban regime.

‘‘It demonstrates the success of the anti-Taliban forces but crucially it denies ... Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida space inside Afghanistan in which to hide.’’