February 26, 2007	Monday	Safar 8, 1428

NEW YORK, Feb 25: As the frenzy to force Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment programme continues unabated, the New Yorker, magazine reported on Sunday that a US military panel has been created to plan a potential bombing attack in Iran and some troops have already entered the country, chasing Iranian operatives.

According to magazine's investigative reporter Seymour Hersh who has in the past has reported accurately on Abu Gharaib prison, the panel initially focused on destroying Iran's nuclear facilities and on regime change, an unidentified former US intelligence official was quoted as saying.

It has more recently been directed to identify Iranian targets that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq, according to an Air Force adviser and a Pentagon consultant not identified by the magazine in its March 4 issue.

The consultant and a former senior intelligence official said US forces had crossed the border from Iraq in pursuit of Iranian operatives, the article says.

In response to the report, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said: "The

United States is not planning to go to war with Iran. To suggest anything to the contrary is simply wrong, misleading and mischievous."

Mr Hersh citing unnamed current and former US officials, also said the

Bush administration had received unconfirmed intelligence from Israel that Iran had developed an intercontinental missile capable of reaching targets in Europe. It added the validity of that intelligence was still being debated.

In addition, Vice President Dick Cheney has directed the clandestine operations in Lebanon, Iran and Syria, relying on Saudi Arabia and its national security adviser Prince Bandar to provide the funding so that operations remain secret.

Reporter Hersh said that US policy has been "redirected" toward undermining Iran and its Shia leadership.

"The 'redirection,' as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran...," he writes in the magazine.

The magazine reports that the United States is pushing its policy in the region with clandestine operations in Lebanon, Iran and Syria.

"A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda," Hersh concludes.

Some US aid distributed to Sunni groups in Lebanon falls into the hands of radical groups, US, European and Arab officials told the weekly magazine.

In an appearance on CNN "Late Edition" on Sunday, Hersh said that the Sunni Jihadist group in Lebanon were being financed to counter Hezbollah, which fought off a massive Israeli attack last July.

"We're spreading the money around as much as we can," a former senior intelligence official said, and that has "serious potential unintended consequences."