WASHINGTON, Jan 6: About 100 United States special forces members and more than 50 Central Intelligence Agency officers have been infiltrated inside Iraq and have been operating there in small groups for at least four months, The Boston Globe said on Sunday.

Citing unnamed intelligence officials and military analysts, the paper said the teams were searching for Iraqi Scud missile launchers, monitoring oil fields, marking minefields and using laser pointers to guide United States pilots patrolling the northern and southern no-fly zones toward their targets.

The operations, which have also included small numbers of Jordanian, British and Australian commandos, are considered to be part of the opening phase of an invasion of Iraq, the newspaper said. —AFP