WASHINGTON, March 27: The United States has escalated air strikes against Al Qaeda fighters operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas fearing that the new government in Islamabad may object to future strikes, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The report – attributed to senior officials in the Bush administration – reflects US concerns about the new Pakistani government’s plans to hold talks with the militants.

Officials interviewed by the Post for the article said Washington wanted to inflict as much damage as it can to Al Qaeda’s network now because President Pervez Musharraf may not be able to offer much help in the months ahead.

Over the past two months, US-controlled Predator aircraft have struck at least three sites used by Al Qaeda operatives, the Post reported.

About 45 Arab, Afghan and other foreign fighters have been killed in the attacks, all near the Afghan border.

The Post noted that neither the US nor the Pakistani authorities officially confirmed US missile attacks on Pakistani territory, which would be an infringement of Pakistani sovereignty.

US intelligence officials told the Post they believed Al Qaeda had several hundred operatives in Waziristan alone. “But as we learned on 9/11, it only takes 19,” said one such official while explaining why the United States wants to finish them off now.

Thomas H. Johnson, a research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, told the newspaper that policy makers in Washington were aware that “Musharraf’s days are numbered, and so they recognised they may only have a few months to do this. Musharraf has . . . very few friends in the world -- he probably has more inside the Beltway (Washington) than in his own country.”

The report claimed that after months of prodding, the Bush administration and the Musharraf government this year reached a tacit understanding that gave Washington a freer hand to carry out precision strikes against Al Qaeda and its allies in the border region. The issue, however, is so sensitive that neither side is willing to discuss openly, the report added.

According to the Post, the goal of the new US strategy is partly to try to get information on senior Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, by forcing them to move in ways that US intelligence analysts can detect.

“It’s not a blitz to close this chapter,” a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the newspaper. “If we find the leadership, then we’ll go after it. But nothing can be done to put Al Qaeda away in the next nine or 10 months. In the long haul, it’s an issue that extends beyond this administration.”

The report said that the Bush administration’s effort to uproot Al Qaeda also has benefited from shifting loyalties among residents of the border region. Some tribal and religious leaders who embraced foreign Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters as they fled from Afghanistan in 2001 now see them as troublemakers and are providing timely intelligence about their movements and hideouts.

Experts interviewed by Post, however, warned that the new US strategy could backfire if missiles take innocent lives.

“The [tribal] Pashtuns have a saying: ‘Kill one person, make 10 enemies,” said Mr Johnson. “You might take out a bad guy in one of these strikes, but you might also be creating more foot soldiers. This is a war in which the more people you kill, the faster you lose.”