US military action under way outside Afghanistan

US military officials have confirmed Afghanistan isn't the only country where American forces are fighting, or planning to fight, terrorist networks.

They won't say where, but other areas known as hide-outs for the al-Qaida network include Somalia, Yemen, Sudan and the Chechnya region of Russia.

All are predominantly Muslim, with vast, war-ravaged areas under little or no central government control.

Speaking from the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, Commander of the Afghan war, General Tommy Franks, said overt and covert US military operations are going on in a great many places.

Those operations are designed to do away with pockets of terrorism, Franks said without giving details.

"I think General Franks was being vague for an obvious reason," said Army Colonel Richard Thomas, spokesman for US Central Command, which Franks heads.

"There's a lot of stuff going on. Some of it you get to report, some of it you don't."

State Department spokesman Philip Reeker has already denied reports the United States has asked Yemen to allow US forces to participate in the hunt for al-Qaida members there.

Yemeni troops have been searching for members of the terrorist network since December 18, and at least 24 solders and six tribesmen have been killed.