Al-Qaeda 'rebuilding' in Pakistan

National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said al-Qaeda was strengthening itself across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

There was no immediate reaction from the Pakistani government.

Earlier this week, the US carried out air strikes in Somalia targeting what it believed to be members of al-Qaeda.

Such a claim will be embarrassing for Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who Mr Negroponte described as a key partner in America's war on terror, our correspondent says.

'Secure hide-out'

Mr Negroponte told a Senate committee that al-Qaeda was still the militant organisation that "poses the greatest threat to US interests".

"They are cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hide-out in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe," he said.

"We have captured or killed numerous senior al-Qaeda operatives, but al-Qaeda's core elements are resilient. They continue to plot attacks against our homeland and other targets with the objective of inflicting mass casualties," Mr Negroponte added.

He did not say where in Pakistan the group's leadership was hiding, or refer to its chief, Osama Bin Laden, or his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who are wanted for masterminding the 11 September attacks on Washington and New York.

But the unusually forthright statement by Mr Negroponte appears to be the first time the US has publicly singled out Pakistan, one of its key allies, as the current home of al-Qaeda's high command.

Previously, officials had spoken more vaguely about the group having bases in the mountainous border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency, Lt-Gen Michael Maples, said Pakistan's border with Afghanistan remained a haven for al-Qaeda and other militants.

The tribal areas on the border are thought to be where al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden and his deputy Zawahiri could be hiding.

Pakistan and Afghanistan share a 1,400-mile (2,250km) mountainous border which is extremely difficult to patrol.

Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters are thought to be operating on both sides.

The two countries regularly exchange charge and counter-charge over who is to blame for the violence.

Recently, Pakistan reiterated its intention to fence and mine sections of the troubled border.

Kabul particularly opposes the idea of mining stretches of the frontier, saying it will endanger civilian lives.

An Islamist insurgency spearheaded by the resurgent Taleban militia is at its strongest in the southern Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan.