US: A senior US military officer has predicted that al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq will move to the "vast ungoverned spaces" of the Horn of Africa once conditions in the country get too tough for them.
The warning yesterday came from Maj Gen Douglas Lute, director of operations at Central Command.
"There will come a time when Zarqawi will face too much resistance in Iraq and will move on," he predicted, referring to the head of "al-Qaeda in Iraq", Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Maj Gen Lute said 90 per cent of what he called the "enemy" in Iraq was domestic. There was only a "slither" of foreign fighters "sponsored from outside".
Meanwhile, Italian authorities revealed yesterday that they were investigating a fax, allegedly signed by al- Qaeda, which made veiled threats against the Vatican.
The three-page document, written in Arabic, accused the Vatican of supporting "the capitalist countries" which joined the war in Iraq. It justified terror attacks in Britain and Spain as "self-defence against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan".