United States President George W Bush's top counterterrorism advisers have acknowledged that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden's leadership of al Qaeda in Pakistan had failed, The New York Times has reported.
The White House released a grim new intelligence assessment that has forced the administration to consider more aggressive measures inside Pakistan.
The intelligence report, the most formal assessment since the September 11 attacks about the terrorist threat facing the United States, concludes that the United States is losing ground on a number of fronts in the fight against al Qaeda.
The report says the terrorist organisation has significantly strengthened over the past two years.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's hands-off approach towards the tribal areas is being blamed for the situation.
Musharraf had brokered a cease-fire with tribal leaders in an effort to drain support for Islamic extremism in the region.
But American officials make little secret of their skepticism that General Musharraf has the capability to be effective in the mountainous territory along the Afghan border, where his troops have been bloodied before by a mix of Qaeda leaders and tribes that view the territory as their own, not part of Pakistan, the news report said.
The intelligence report nevertheless left the White House fending off accusations that it had been distracted by the war in Iraq and that the deals it had made with Musharraf had resulted in lost time and lost ground.
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