WASHINGTON, Feb 15: Losses sustained since 2008 could force Al Qaeda to vacate Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, says a US intelligence report prepared for Congress.

This year’s annual threat assessment by the US intelligence community shows how a concerted military effort to uproot Al Qaeda from Fata has weakened the group the US blames for the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

“In Pakistan’s tribal areas, Al Qaeda lost significant parts of its command structure since 2008 in a succession of blows as damaging to the group as any since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001,” says the report.

“Sustained pressure against Al Qaeda in Fata has the potential to further degrade its organisational cohesion and diminish the threat it poses.”

Exploring the possibility that the losses sustained since 2008 could force Al Qaeda to vacate Fata, the report notes: “It is conceivable Al Qaeda could relocate elsewhere in South Asia, the Gulf, or parts of Africa.”

The terrorist group would look for a place where it could “exploit a weak central government and close proximity to established recruitment, fundraising, and facilitation networks,” the report adds.

“But we judge none of these locations would be as conducive to their operational needs as their location in Fata.”

The US intelligence community also points out that if forced to vacate Fata and locate elsewhere, Al Qaeda would be vulnerable to US or host-country security crackdowns as well as local resistance. It probably would be forced to adopt an even more dispersed, clandestine structure, making training and operational coordination more difficult.

“Without access to its Fata safe-haven, Al Qaeda also undoubtedly would have greater difficulty supporting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.”

According to the annual US intelligence report, key Al Qaeda leaders killed in Fata over the past year include Khalid Habib, the group’s military chief and the fourth man in its chain of command; Abu Layth Al Libi, who directed cross-border attacks against US forces in Afghanistan and was a rising star in the organisation; Abu Khabab Al Masri, the group’s leading expert on explosives and chemical attacks and a driving force behind its terrorist plotting against the US Homeland and Europe; and Usama Al Kini who was involved in the bombings of US embassies in East Africa in 1998 and later became the chief planner of Al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

The loss of these and many other leaders in quick succession has made it more difficult for Al Qaeda to identify replacements, and in some cases the group has had to promote junior figures considerably less skilled and respected than the individuals they are replacing.

The US intelligence community, however, warns that the primary threat to Western interests comes from Europe-based extremists affiliated with Al Qaeda who return from training in Pakistan to conduct attacks in Europe or the United States.

The report notes that Al Qaeda is not using Pakistan only to plan attacks against others but is also trying to destabilise Pakistan.

“Al Qaeda and its extremist sympathisers in Pakistan have waged a campaign of deadly and destabilising suicide attacks throughout Pakistan,” the report warns.

The US intelligence community places much importance on India-Pakistan relations for countering the threat of terrorism in South Asia.