US abandons plan for strike on Kurdish rebels in Iraq

The Bush administration has abandoned a plan to launch a military strike against a small radical Kurdish group in northern Iraq with supposed links to al-Qa'ida that was apparently experimenting with toxic agents and poison gas.

The White House decided against the military option after judging the risk presented by the group was not sufficient to risk the lives of American soldiers or the international outcry of launching an operation inside Iraq.

There were widespread reports that the operation was being planned against Ansar al-Islam, a 300-strong Islamist group that operates in a part of Iraq outside Saddam Hussein's control. Some members are believed to have trained at al-Qa'ida camps in Afghanistan.

There is a tenuous link between the group and President Saddam, who is said to pass it arms to harass other larger Kurdish nationalist groups seeking a separate state in northern Iraq. US officials said there was no evidence the Iraqi government was linked to the poison tests. But the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, indicated last night he believed that Saddam was aware of what Ansar al-Islam has been doing.

"It's very hard to imagine that the government is not aware of what's taking place in the country," he said.

The possibility of an operation being launched followed the discovery that the group was testing primitive forms of ricin and poisonous cyanide gas on animals. Initial reports described these tests as being done in a laboratory but subsequent information suggests there was a much more basic set-up. One report said at least one test was done on a human.

Ricin is a lethal by-product of the castor bean plant. "It is toxic, probably seven times more toxic than phosgene, which was a chemical weapon used in the First World War," said Jonathan Tucker, director of a chemical and biological weapons non-proliferation programme at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "There is no treatment and no vaccine for ricin exposure."

Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that the head of the US Special Forces Command, Air Force General Charles Holland, met Mr Rumsfeld, last month to discuss a possible operation against Ansar al-Islam. The raid was envisaged as a combined CIA and Pentagon operation, likely to involve Delta Force or other such groups.

A spokesman for the White House National Security Council said: "We don't confirm whether something was, is or might be a military target."

The revelations will cause discomfort in the White House because President George Bush has promised every audience he addresses that his administration will "hunt the killers down one by one" and prevent America's enemies acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

* CNN and CBS both paid for a set of videotapes said to depict al-Qaida poison gas experiments, it was revealed yesterday, but both insisted the money did not go to Osama bin Laden's terrorist organisation. CNN said at first it had not paid for the tapes.