TEHRAN (Reuters) - Burhanuddin Rabbani, president of the internationally recognized Afghan government, said Western special forces were already operating inside Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan, an Iranian newspaper said Wednesday. (Read photo caption below)

There have been a number of unconfirmed reports of elite U.S. and British commando units operating in Afghanistan since the September 11 attacks on the United States as Washington gears up to strike at its chief suspect, Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, and his Taliban hosts.
``We have received accounts to the effect that special forces from the West are already in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan conducting surveillance,'' the English-language newspaper Iran News quoted Rabbani as saying in an interview.
``But they are not present in areas controlled by our government and the Northern Alliance,'' he said.
Rabbani heads the Afghan government that the purist Taliban militia ousted from Kabul in 1996. The international community still recognizes him as president even though he and his allies control less than 10 percent of the country.
Analysts say special forces could be used to try to track down bin Laden as well as guide air strikes against his al Qaeda network and Taliban bases.
But Rabbani said this would be no easy task. ``We believe he is still in Afghanistan,'' he said. ``He moves around all the time and has a great number of mountain and other hideouts.''
While further bloodshed in the war-ravaged country seemed ''inevitable,'' Rabbani said: ``The hope is that being fully aware of the intricacies and delicate nature of Afghanistan's history, the West would do its utmost not to repeat the mistakes of the past and bring peace and stability to the beleaguered people of Afghanistan.''
PHOTO CAPTION:
Afghanistan's exiled President Burhanuddin Rabbani, seen in Faizabad, Afghanistan in this October 23, 2000 file photograph, has named General Mukhammad Fakhim as a replacement for injured opposition leader Ahmad Shad Masood, an official said September 13, 2001. Afghanistan's northern alliance opposes the ruling Taliban, who are accused of harbouring Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in coordinating the terrorist attacks in the United States. REUTERS/Mian Khursheed/Files
- Sep 13 9:28 PM ET