WASHINGTON, February 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – In a move interpreted by some as part of final preparations for the looming war, the U.S. began Friday, February 28, moving troops from the elite 101st Airborne Division from their base in Kentucky for the Gulf.

Most of the division's 20,000 troops are expected to be in the region within a week, said John Minton, a spokesman for the 101st Division in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"We're in the deployment process right now," he stressed.

"It began approximately a week ago; as of noon today, we will have deployed approximately 5,500."

The elite air assault division played a key role in the 1991 Gulf war and was also deployed in Afghanistan last year.

Experts contended the 101st division is usually deployed after the war decision has already been taken.

Minton said the 101st Airborne Division has about 270 helicopters, including the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and the UH-60 Black Hawk.

"Our primary mission is to conduct operations using air assault technique, that is rappelling out of helicopters," Minton said.

"We're a rapid deployment force. We have the largest aviation brigade in the United States Army."

The 101st Airborne shed its parachutes during its service in the Vietnam war and became an air assault division, building into a specialty the use helicopters to move troops in that conflict.

In January 1991, the division launched a massive helicopter-borne assault in Iraq, helping to isolate Iraqi forces and drive them from Kuwait in a ground conflict that lasted just 100 hours, without suffering a single casualty.

Most recently, soldiers from the division's Third Brigade took part in another air assault in March in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province.

News of the movement followed announcements that the navy is sending the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz to the Gulf and that the air force's sole B-2 stealth bomber wing has received orders to deploy "for potential combat operations."

Where and when the B-2s are moving was not disclosed, but the order was significant because the radar-evading bombers are generally used in the opening air strikes of a conflict.

Special climate-controlled shelters have been built for them in Fairford, England and the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, giving commanders the option of positioning them closer to Iraq.

The Nimitz, meanwhile, is supposed to replace the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which was heading home when the latest crisis broke out.

The 101st Division has about 270 helicopters, including the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter

The United States already has more than 225,000 troops spread out from the eastern Mediterranean to Afghanistan, including 111,000 in Kuwait, the main staging area for a possible invasion of Iraq.

The forces in Kuwait include some 60,000 marines who have been coming ashore from fleets of amphibious warships and taking up positions in the desert near the border with Iraq.

The army's 20,000-strong 3rd Infantry Division, a 5,000-strong brigade combat team from the 82nd Airborne Division and a welter of army aviation, artillery and support units are also in the country.

Troops from the army's mechanized 4th Infantry Division were awaiting the word to begin flowing into the region.

They are expected to deploy to Turkey to open a second front in northern Iraq, but U.S. vessels carrying their tanks and armored vehicles have been idling offshore awaiting an agreement sealed by the Turkish parliament, which is scheduled to take up the matter Saturday, March 1.

"The purpose of flowing forces is to demonstrate the seriousness of purpose of the international community," U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday, February 27.

"And I think that is exactly what's taking place."

The pace of deployments has intensified as the United States heads into a decisive week of diplomacy at the United Nations, where all sides are poised to jump on chief arms inspector Hans Blix's report on Iraqi disarmament.

Iraqis Dissidents End U.S. Military Training

Iraqi volunteers attend American military training at Taszar Air base

In another related development down the road of U.S. preparations for war, the first group of Iraqi dissidents is due to complete its training at a U.S. airbase in Hungary Friday.

They will now be sent to take their places in U.S. army units closer to Iraq in preparation for war, and a new group of Iraqis will begin training in Hungary, the BBC News Online reported.

The first batch of Iraqis to train in Hungary came mostly from the United States.

They are trained in self-defense and in a range of liaison skills between U.S. forces and the civilian population, the BBC added.

If an invasion starts, one recruit, Mohammed, said "My role over there is to help the civilians."

"If there are any refugees, if people need water, medicine, food, we are there for them, "Mohamed added, while wearing the insignia of the FIF, the Free Iraqi Forces.

The average age of the first group is 38, with their U.S. trainers stress they reflect a wide range of ethnic and religious groups in Iraq.

On leaving here, the men are expected to be assigned to U.S. forces in Turkey or the Gulf.