It has come to light that Obama approved a huge increase in the number of US special forces carrying out search-and-destroy missions against radical groups. American troops are now operating in 75 countries compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year, the Washington Post reported. In the past 18 months he has ordered a big expansion in Yemen and the Horn of Africa — known areas of strong al-Qaeda activity — and elsewhere in West Asia, central Asia and Africa.

Obama has asked for a 5.7 per cent increase in the Special Operations budget for fiscal 2011 amounting to $6.3 billion, plus an additional sum of $3.5 billion from the 2010 contingency funding, the report said.

It said Obama has also approved pre-emptive special forces strikes to disrupt terror plots. Commanders are now planning greater use of these special forces for pre-emptive or retaliatory strikes when a plot has been identified, or after an attack linked to a specific group.

The surge in Special Operations deployments, along with intensified CIA drone attacks in western Pakistan, is the other side of the national security doctrine of global engagement and domestic values President Obama released last week. Of about 13,000 US special forces deployed overseas, about 9,000 are evenly divided between Afghanistan