US strategy on Afghanistan 'is weakening al-Qaeda'
Al-Qaeda's leadership in Pakistan is at its weakest since 2001, a US review of Afghan strategy has said.
President Barack Obama's review says the US has made enough progress in Afghanistan to start a "responsible reduction" of forces in July 2011.
But it says that the gains against the Taliban made by the US troop surge remain "fragile and reversible".
Nato's plan is to transfer full responsibility for the country's affairs to Afghans by the end of 2014.
The review comes at a time when civilian casualties are at their highest since the US-led invasion of 2001. This year has also been the bloodiest for foreign troops since 2001, with the US taking the brunt of the casualties.
The White House has released a five-page summary of the review of the war strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan ahead of speech by President Obama on the document later on yesterday.
The review says: "Al-Qaeda's senior leadership in Pakistan is weaker and under more sustained pressure than at any other point since it fled Afghanistan in 2001."
It continues: "In Afghanistan, the momentum achieved by the Taliban in recent years has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in some key areas, although these gains remain fragile and reversible.
"While the strategy is showing progress across all three assessed areas of al-Qaeda, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the challenge remains to make our gains durable and sustainable."
But BBC correspondents say the bigger picture is of an insurgency fighting to the death in Helmand and Kandahar and expanding in places like Ghazni and Kunduz.
The Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen David Petraeus, says a number of insurgents have approached the Afghan government and foreign forces about laying down arms.
However, the Taliban leadership has publicly shunned the idea of direct talks with the government.
There are more than 150,000 Nato troops in Afghanistan trying to defeat the insurgency.
Comments