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"Analysts initially believed that the killing of Ahmed Shah Masoud, head of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, was part of Bin Laden's preparations for Sept. 11--a move to deprive the U.S. of a potential ally on the ground when it retaliated for the suicide hijackings.

"Government officials now say Masoud's assassination was part of a more ambitious design: to establish a caliphate, or religious state, encompassing Afghanistan and parts of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya and the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region of northwestern China.

""Their plan was to capture [northern] Afghanistan in one week after the assassination and--maybe two to three weeks later--capture Tajikistan and Uzbekistan," said Mohammad Arif, chairman of the National Security Directorate in the interim Afghan government.

""As Masoud's chief of intelligence, Arif ran spy networks inside the Taliban and received reports from interrogations of Taliban and other Islamic militants captured by the Northern Alliance.

"U.S. officials confirmed what they called "Bin Laden's grand plan" to expand militarily and politically into Central Asia. American policy advisors were extremely unsettled by the plan well before Sept. 11, officials said.

""It was of great concern, absolutely," said a senior Bush administration official. "That is one reason we wanted to get rid of him. He wanted to knock off other governments. They were training terrorists, creating front organizations."

"Though U.S. officials were less certain than Arif that Bin Laden's Al Qaeda and the Taliban had a timetable for advancing into Central Asia, they regarded the Masoud assassination as a key step toward that goal.

""They wanted to take over the whole country ... [and then] they wanted to expand the caliphate," said the senior U.S. official, who noted that Masoud and his resistance force were the last obstacle to Taliban and Al Qaeda control of Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan's foreign minister, Abdullah, said in an interview, "Osama believed that by getting rid of Commander Masoud, the resistance would be over."

"The former Masoud advisor conceded that Bin Laden's judgment was sound. "It was only Masoud's own qualities which kept the resistance alive.""