As targeted killings have risen sharply across Afghanistan, American and Afghan officials believe that many are the work of counterintelligence units of the Haqqani militant network and Al Qaeda, charged with killing suspected informants and terrorizing the populace on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

New US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said the US is "within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda". Mr Panetta said that following the killing of Osama Bin Laden, key leaders in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere had been identified and would be targeted.

As the Obama administration nears a crucial decision on how rapidly to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan, high-ranking officials say that Al Qaeda s original network in the region has been crippled, providing a rationale for an accelerated reduction of troops.

Afghanistan After years of fighting for control of a prominent valley in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the United States military has begun to pull back most of its forces from ground it once insisted was central to the campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan A stepped-up campaign of American drone strikes over the past three months has battered Al Qaeda and its Pakistani and Afghan brethren in the tribal area of North Waziristan, according to a mid-ranking militant and supporters of the government there.

Pakistani intelligence officers have arrested Adam Gadahn, the American-born al-Qaeda spokesman, in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, according to government officials.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani authorities, having been embarrassed in the past over false claims, have not yet conclusively stated that Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP - Taliban Movement of Pakistan), was killed in a United States drone attack in the South Waziristan tribal area last week. A senior Pakistani security official has been quoted as saying that Mehsud had "probably been killed" along with about 12 militants in Shaktoee, a village close to the border with North Waziristan, but that the matter was being investigated.