The US Defence Department has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting US law to give Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wide authority over spy operations abroad, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

Citing Pentagon documents and interviews with participants, the newspaper said Rumsfeld created the organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, to end "near total dependence" on the Central Intelligence Agency for human intelligence.

A Defence Department spokesman was not immediately available to comment.

The Strategic Support Branch, which has been operating for two years, deploys teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists with special operations forces, according to the Washington Post.

It has operated in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other undisclosed locations, the newspaper reported. The group's focus, according to an early planning document, was on Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, Philippines and Georgia, the Post said.

Quoting a Defence Department memo, the newspaper said the Pentagon may recruit foreign spies that include "notorious figures" whose links to the US government would be embarrassing if disclosed.

The newspaper said the Defence Department's espionage activities include missions in both friendly and unfriendly states when conventional war may be distant or unlikely.

Those activities traditionally fall to the CIA's Directorate of Operations, the Washington Post said.

The Strategic Support Branch was established with "re-programmed" funds and without explicit authority from the US Congress, the newspaper reported, quoting unnamed Pentagon officials.

Rumsfeld's efforts are aimed at giving combat forces more information about their immediate enemy and to penetrate organizations such as al-Qaida, the newspaper reported.

The newspaper quoted Assistant Defence Secretary Thomas O'Connell, who oversees special operations policy, as saying Rumsfeld discarded the "hidebound way of thinking" and "risk-averse mentalities" of previous Pentagon officials.

Source: China Daily