WASHINGTON, Feb 24: The United States may offer up to 55 new and 25 used F-16s to Pakistan in 2006, says a congressional report released days before President Bush’s visit to India and Pakistan.

The report by the Congressional Research Service (CRI) says that the US has been directly involved in training the security detail of President Pervez Musharraf and has funded a 650-officer Diplomatic Security Unit.

The report points out that the US policy interests in Pakistan encompass a wide range of issues, including counterterrorism, nuclear weapons and missile proliferation, South Asian and Afghan stability, democratization and human rights, economic reform and efforts to counter drug trafficking.

It says that the US departments of state and defence acknowledge that Pakistan has afforded the US unprecedented levels of cooperation by allowing the US military to use bases in the country, helping to identify and detain extremists, and tightening the Afghan border.

Top US officials regularly praise Pakistani anti-terrorism efforts, the report notes. But it also claims that Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives remain in Pakistan and appear to have regrouped in Pakistani cities and the mountainous tribal regions along the Afghan border.