KUWAIT CITY, 8 April 2003 — US military forces airlifted Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, into southern Iraq on Sunday, along with hundreds of followers described by his London-based exile group as soldiers who will fight to topple Saddam Hussein.

Supporters and opponents of Chalabi interpreted the move as a Pentagon-backed bid to enhance his standing in post-war Iraq.

The force, called the “1st Battalion Free Iraqi Forces’’ is composed of less than 500 men but could grow to 700. They were flown early Sunday to a spot near the southern city of Nassiriyah. Officials downplayed their duties, saying most would do non-military jobs, including helping with humanitarian aid and local administration.

But the move suggested that top Pentagon officials hoped to rely on Chalabi and members of the Iraqi National Congress as the seed of a new government.

That has generated intense opposition from several high State Department and CIA officials, who have argued that Chalabi has little popular support and would be perceived as a US-imposed leader.

These officials also fear Chalabi’s quick ascension would send the wrong signal to those who remained inside Iraq during Saddam’s 24-year rule about their prospects in a new government. That, in turn, could have an impact on their willingness to embrace a postwar government. Chalabi, born in 1945 to a wealthy banking family, has not been in the country since 1958, except for a period in the mid-1990s when he sought unsuccessfully to organize a mass uprising from a base in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. He is a Shiite, the Muslim group that is concentrated in the south.

“The Pentagon keeps pushing ahead — they’ve been relentless in their pursuit of a policy, which is to take these guys from the outside, led by Chalabi, and make them the next government of Iraq,’’ said a well-placed US official who requested anonymity.

A White House official downplayed the significance of Chalabi’s airlift, saying the leadership of an interim authority for Iraq has not been decided.