CARLISLE (USA), March 27: The Al Qaeda network and ‘affiliated Islamic extremists’ represent one of the most brutal enemies the United States has ever seen, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday.

In remarks prepared for delivery to Army War College students and faculty, Mr Rumsfeld cited several examples of vicious terrorist assaults, including the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, and warned that unless the terrorists are stopped they will continue to seek the means to launch even deadlier attacks on the West in the years ahead.

“The enemy we face may be the most brutal in our history,” Mr Rumsfeld said. “They lack only the means _ not the desire _ to murder millions of innocent people with weapons vastly more powerful than boarding passes and box cutters,” he added, referring to those who hijacked the airliners on Sept 11.

Earlier in the day Mr Rumsfeld stopped at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to see for the first time the place where hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field on Sept 11, killing all 40 passengers and crew shortly after hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. The Sept 11 Commission report said the hijackers crashed the plane as passengers tried to take control of the cockpit.—AP