I have used the & command before to make a script run another script in the background like so: #!/bin/bash echo "Hello World" script1.sh & script2.sh & echo "Please wait..." But lets say I have another script with an IF ELSE statment and I would like to set an ELIF statement mid flow as a background task witht the & and then carry on with processing the rest of my script knowing that while rest of the ELIF will carry running in the back ground: #!/bin/bash if cond1; then stuff sleep 10 & stuff stuff elif cond2; then something else else echo "foo" fi stuff echo "Hello World" I really hope this makes sense any help would be greatly appreciated.