New Delhi: The Bush administration has decided to place teams of American inspectors at major seaports in Muslim countries and other smaller strategically located foreign ports, reports 'Dawn', quoting 'New York Times'.

The measure is meant to prevent terrorists from using cargo containers to smuggle chemical, biological or nuclear weapons into the United States.

The inspectors will be provided with radiation monitors, chemical detectors and other equipment to inspect "high risk" metal cargo containers before they are placed US-bound ships, according to officials.

The move is the second phase in a government programme begun shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to station American customs inspectors overseas to work side by side with their foreign counterparts in searching for unconventional weapons. The first phase focused on 20 large container ports in Europe and Asia, none of them in countries with predominantly Muslim populations.

Officials told the newspaper that teams of American inspectors would be at work at almost all of those large ports, a list that includes Antwerp, Genoa, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Rotterdam, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo and Yokohama, by the end of the year.

The Department of Homeland Security, it is reported, planned to place teams of inspectors that would remain indefinitely in Dubai, the Persian Gulf Emirate that is a crucial trans-shipment point for containerised cargo in the Arab world; Malaysia; Turkey and other Muslim nations. Al-Qaida is believed to have a sizable presence in both Dubai and Malaysia.

Intelligence agencies report that al-Qaida has repeatedly used cargo ships to move conventional weapons and explosives, including the explosives used in the 1998 bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa.

ANI