Challenge: Salmond

The prime minister has been urged to publish a key "war aims" document detailing the objectives of the strikes in Afghanistan.

In a Commons question tabled on Monday, former SNP leader Alex Salmond called on Tony Blair to release "Defeating Terrorism: Campaign Objectives".

Details of the document, described by a ministerial aide as a "policy bible" have already been trailed in the media, Salmond argued, after a government briefing in Oman.

He said that as part of the document were now in the public domain, the government should release it in full. Salmond claimed the document rules out military strikes outside Afghanistan in the "first phase" but does not exclude widening the retaliations to include other countries in "phase two".

"It is ludicrous that this key policy document has been widely trailed in the media, yet it is still not available to parliament and the public," he claimed. "We need absolute clarity and no more secrecy from the prime minister on this key aspect of the campaign, because any expansion of military action would wreck the international coalition and cause enormous instability in Muslim and Arab countries."