Powell set for talks with Blair
US Secretary of State Colin Powell was arriving in London today for talks with Tony Blair after a major US strike at caves where Osama bin Laden was reportedly sighted.
US forces dropped a 15,000lbs ‘‘Daisy-cutter’’ bomb at the Tora Bora cave complex last night after the reported sighting.
The attack came as Pentagon chiefs said the terror chief is fast losing authority over his al-Qaida network and remaining Taliban defenders.
That may pave the way for a multinational ‘‘stabilisation’’ force to be sent in to keep order while the new interim government establishes itself.
British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has indicated the UK would be prepared to provide senior officers and headquarters staff to spearhead that force.
And any possible deployment of British troops was expected to be on the agenda as Mr Powell met the British Prime Minister in Downing Street.
Downing Street yesterday played down the chances of such a deployment, saying no request had been made for forces to keep order while the new interim government established itself.
Reports had suggested Britain could contribute up to 3,000 ground troops, accompanied by armoured personnel carriers, to the mission.
But the British Prime Minister’s spokesman insisted no decisions had yet been taken on any British deployment.
‘‘No specific requests have been made of anybody, so it is too early to talk about whether, how many, and so on,’’ he said.
The spokesman indicated any British participation was likely to be of relatively short duration, securing the ground for longer-term peace-keeping troops, probably drawn from predominantly Muslim nations such as Turkey.
He also stressed that as long as the conflict continued in Afghanistan, any force would be under direct US command.
The chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, Labour MP Bruce George, urged caution, warning that any such operation would be ‘‘fraught with danger’’ for British forces.
‘‘It would be wrong for countries who have been willing the end of this conflict to not participate in some form of force afterwards,’’ he said.
‘‘But certainly I would not envisage them wandering around the country becoming targets to anyone who dislikes a non-Muslim presence in Afghanistan.’’
His comments came after the British Ministry of Defence confirmed that a Royal Engineer had been injured after stepping on a landmine near the Bagram airbase, north of the capital Kabul.
The soldier, who has not been named, was taken to a US military hospital following the incident on Thursday where his condition was said to be ‘‘stable’’.
He was working as a member of the explosive ordnance disposal unit, deployed to Bagram last month as part of a 100-strong force of Royal Marines, Royal Engineers and Special Boat Service personnel.
:: Tony Blair and Colin Powell were taking time out from talks to commemorate September 11 exactly three months to the minute since the first attack on New York’s World Trade Centre.
Both men will stand in Downing Street as an American High School band strike up the British and US national anthems at an event beginning at 1.46pm.
At the White House in Washington, President George W Bush will take part in what a spokesman called ‘‘a small service of remembrance’’.
It was Mr Bush who asked more than 70 world leaders to commemorate the moment three months ago when the first hijacked plane struck the north tower of the World Trade Centre.
A service will also take place at the site of the collapsed towers, where workers continue their round-the-clock search for bodies.
The death toll has now been reduced at the New York disaster site to just over 3,000 people, half the initial estimate, of which just over 500 bodies have been found and identified.
