(IPS) analysis With the Taliban vanquished and Al Qaeda routed from its last mountain redoubts around Tora Bora near the Pakistani border, US policymakers are trying to decide how best to pursue their three-month-old ''war against terrorism.''

The war has not only confirmed Washington's military dominance at the dawn of the 21st century, but it also has established anti-terrorism as the chief rationale for US intervention virtually anywhere in the world, the same purpose served by anti-communism during the Cold War.

Some top officials, notably Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, insist that much remains to be done within Afghanistan's borders, especially in tracking down the Taliban's Mullah Omar, as well as Osama bin Laden and his top aides who so far have eluded capture or death.

Indeed, US officials have expressed frustration at evidence that its Pashtun allies may actually have helped hide or smuggle America's ''Most Wanted'' out of Afghanistan, without whom it will be impossible for Washington to declare a total victory.

Because the new government in Afghanistan will lack the incentive for finding the ''evil-doers,'' it will fall to US forces themselves to search out and destroy the Al Qaeda remnants, be it in Afghanistan or, more controversially, across the border in Pakistan, according to these forces which say that mission should remain priority one.

In fact, in their view, the hard part of the war - where air power and local allies will not figure as prominently as before - has only just begun.

But others are eager for Washington to take its anti-terrorist show on the road before the public back home loses interest and begins to focus on the perilous state of the domestic economy.

Indeed, there appears to be growing sentiment both within the administration and in Congress for a military campaign against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, particularly in light of the unexpectedly swift success of the US strategy in Afghanistan. A recent poll shows a strong majority of the public favouring action to oust the Iraqi leader.

''After Afghanistan, what?'' asked Eliot Cohen, a professor of strategicstudies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies here in Tuesday's edition of the Wall Street Journal. ''Iraq is the big prize,'' answered Cohen, who has close ties to the hard-line civilian leadership in the US Defence Department.

While officials confirm that contingency planning for war against Baghdad is well underway, US forces may also be engaged much further afield - albeit at a much-reduced level - in the immediate aftermath of the Afghanistan campaign.

Ten days ago, for example, 19 US soldiers joined Philippine troops in Mindanao to step up training for forces fighting the Abu Sayyaf guerrilla group which the administration believes is linked to Al Qaeda. In addition, the Pentagon is now using its former bases in the Philippines for the first time since it was kicked out in 1991.

Further, the administration of President George W Bush is trying to persuade the US Congress to resume military ties with Indonesia, suspended for human rights reasons.

The administration is citing Indonesia's recent admissions that Al Qaeda operatives helped set up training camps in Sulawesi for Laskar Jihad, an Islamist group which has been battling Christians there and in the nearby Maluku islands as the reason to resume military contacts.

Policymakers are also clearly interested in Yemen and Somalia where Al Qaeda is believed to have operatives and followers and where its remnants may try to escape to after their defeat in Afghanistan. The United States, along with France and Britain, have expanded their naval presence in the area in order to interdict boats carrying suspicious cargo.

While a major military operation against the new interim government in Somalia, which Ethiopia claims has been infiltrated by Al Qaeda, is unlikely, a nine-man US team last week held talks with Ethiopian military officials and Somali opposition groups in Puntland, reportedly to assess the feasibility of carrying out strikes in Somalia against specific individuals tied to bin Laden's network.

Washington and the government of Yemen, previously accused of failing to co-operate in the investigation of last year's suicide attack on the US warship Cole in Aden's harbour, have also intensified military and intelligence ties since the Sept 11 terrorist attacks.

Tuesday's reported attacks by Yemeni forces against tribal areas suspected of supporting Al Qaeda are likely to have been undertaken at Washington's prompting following recent talks here between President George W Bush andYemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The clashes took place after tribal leaders reportedly refused to turn over individuals tied to Al Qaeda by US intelligence. Washington is believed to have submitted similar lists to other governments in the region, notably Sudan, which has turned over two individuals wanted by the United States and arrested about two dozen others since Sept 11.

Meanwhile, Washington's new position in the heart of energy-rich Central Asia has transformed the geo-political landscape of the entire region.

Although the Pentagon had run joint military exercises with some of the former Soviet republics over the last few years, their authoritarian rulers are now showering Washington with invitations to use their military bases.

While Russia and China have yet to challenge these new arrangements, the Bush administration, which is close to the US oil industry, appears eager to take advantage of its on-the-ground prominence - as illustrated by the recent high-profile visits to the region by both Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Moreover, Rumsfeld's announcement last week that he expects Congress to soon lift restrictions on military aid to both Armenia and Azerbaijan points to a more focused effort to consolidate Washington's influence in the Caspian area and take a stronger hand in ensuring security there - all in the name of anti-terrorism.

Washington's sudden new prominence in Central Asia and the Caspian, like its abrupt abandonment of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty last week, underlines the degree to which unilateralist forces within the administration feel empowered by the military's success.