NEW YORK, July 4: The CIA has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama Bin Laden and his top aides, intelligence officials told the New York Times. In an exclusive report on Tuesday, the newspaper said the unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the CIA Counterterrorist Centre, the officials told the newspaper.

The decision is a milestone for the agency, which formed the unit before Osama became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the September 11 attacks, when President Bush pledged to bring Osama to justice ‘dead or alive’.

The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, and a growing concern about Al Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of Osama and his top deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the Times said.

Agency officials told the Times that tracking Osama and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened.

Instead, the officials said, it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organisations or individuals.

“The efforts to find Osama Bin Laden are as strong as ever,” Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a CIA spokeswoman, told the newspaper.

“This is an agile agency, and the decision was made to ensure greater reach and focus.”

Michael Scheuer, a former senior CIA official who was the first head of the unit, said in an interview with the Times that the move reflected a view within the agency that Osama was no longer the threat he once was.

Mr Scheuer said that view was mistaken.

“This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda,” he said.

“These days at the agency, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals.”