The latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a two-page unclassified version of which was released here Tuesday, found that al Qaeda has largely rebounded from its eviction from Afghanistan nearly six years ago and re-constituted both its central organisation and some of its training and operational capacities, leading to a ‘’heightened threat environment’’ for the U.S. itself.

According to the report, which represents a consensus judgment of Washington’s 16 intelligence agencies, the group’s resurgence has been made possible primarily by the ‘’safe haven’’ it has enjoyed in the tribal areas of western Pakistan and also by its association with al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which has helped to ‘’energise the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives…’’

The Bush administration has long prodded the government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to attack suspected al Qaeda bases in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan, and its army did so with some success between late 2001 and 2004, when it captured or killed a number of high-ranking al Qaeda operatives, sometimes with the help of U.S. intelligence and its Predator missiles...

But more-aggressive military action also carries serious risks to Musharraf, who, according to some accounts, was forced into the withdrawal agreements by his own army commanders.

‘’They’re very afraid of sparking a wider civil war among the Pashtuns of Pakistan, because one has to remember that most Pashtuns live in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan, but they identify very closely with the Pashtuns of Afghanistan,’’ Anatol Lieven, a South Asia expert at the New America Foundation, said on the same programme. ‘’And the Pashtuns also contribute disproportionately to the Pakistani army...’’

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