WASHINGTON, June 19: Al Qaeda guerillas began planning the Sept 11 attacks in the United States soon after they bombed two US embassies in East Africa in Aug 1998, The New York Times said on Tuesday.

The commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Dan McNeill, told the daily in a separate interview that he expected US forces to remain in Afghanistan for at least one more year until his mission is completed.

In closed-door testimony Tuesday before the joint House and Senate intelligence committees investigating the September 11 attacks, the heads of the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency said US intelligence has a much better understanding of the al-Qaeda group.

Thanks to the military victory in Afghanistan and the capture of important al-Qaeda members around the world, the officials said they were convinced that the group was planning a major strike in the United States three years before the September 11 strikes were carried out.

While the precise date the hijacking scheme was first thought up has not been learned, al-Qaeda conducts major operations in intervals of 12 to 24 months and their plans take as long as three years from conception to execution, an official familiar with the top intelligence chiefs’ testimony told the daily.

As a result, the officials said, the group has tried to have several major operations in the works at the same time.

McNeill told the daily that, in his estimate, there could be as many as 1,000 Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters operating in small bands in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

They remain a threat to Afghanistan, he added.

The objective of the allied force in Afghanistan, he said, was to crush the remnants of Al Qaeda and Taliban and rebuild the foundations of an Afghan army.

He calculated it would take at least one more year of allied presence to accomplish the task.

The commander, who assumed control of the coalition forces on May 31, said that Afghanistan seemed to be gaining stability faster than had been widely expected, and suggested a partial withdrawal of US forces could start in summer 2003.

“Certainly you have to believe things are moving in a direction where the Afghans are clearly taking charge of their destiny,” he said. “That kind of narrows down the time the coalition will be here.”—AFP