The development follows an effort by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to "light a fire" under US commanders to re-energize the war on terrorism, a senior defense official said.

"There will be certain cases in which SOCOM (Special Operations Command) will be the supported command," said Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke. "There will be many cases in which they are not."

The move is noteworthy because the Special Operations Command has traditionally been a support command, supplying special operations forces to commanders responsible for US forces overseas.

By making it a "supported command" in some instances, the Pentagon appears to be freeing the hand of Air Force General Charles Holland, the US special forces commander-in-chief, to mount global operations against the al-Qaeda operations.

"SOCOM from its beginning has always had a charter under existing law to serve as a supported combatant command as directed by the president depending on strategic threats involving counter-proliferation or terrorist threats against US interests," said Lieutenant Colonel Rivers Johnson, a Pentagon spokesman.

"The changes now being directed expand that charter for dealing with threats against the US in the areas of terrorism and counter-proliferations," he said.

The Pentagon would not be more specific about the new orders to SOCOM, which like the US Central Command is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.

As many as 500 US special operations troops have been stationed in the tiny east African state of Djibouti for covert operations in the region, according to US news reports.

The Pentagon would not comment on the reports. US defense officials confirmed that US forces are in the former French colony, but would not say how many or why they were there.

US special forces also have been providing anti-terrorism training and intelligence to government forces in Yemen and Georgia, as well as in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld has said that US special forces training the Afghan national army would be replaced with regular US military, to free them up for other duties.

"There is no pause. There is no lull. There is no quagmire," Rumsfeld told reporters Monday.

"There's barely a day that goes by that somebody somewhere on this globe isn't scooped up and arrested and interrogated and providing information that's harmful to their side and helpful to our side," he said.

jm/jlp

Nampa-AFP WEB story ENDS (NAMPA 190019)

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