News - Afghanistan

The US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said that despite the killings of Osama Bin Laden and radical US-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki the al-Qaeda terror network remains a "real threat to the United States."

"We're going after al-Qaeda, wherever they're at," Panetta told CBS in a recent interview.

Asked if the US forces had defeated al-Qaeda, Mt Panetta said not yet.

"Not yet, they're still a real threat. There's still al-Qaeda out there. And we've got to continue to put pressure on them wherever they're at."

Eight of al-Qaeda's top 20 leaders were eliminated in the past year, mostly in US drone attacks.

US special force operation on May 2 killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in the garrison city of Abbotabad near Pakistani capital Islamabad.

The relations between the US and Pakistan started getting more strained after the attack.

Pakistani officials condemned the attack and called on the US not to repeat similar attacks.

The comment comes as the US President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address that for first time in two decades, ‘Osama Bin Laden is not a threat to this country'. Most of al-Qaeda's top lieutenants have been defeated.

He added that the Taliban's momentum has been broken and remaining al-Qaeda operatives are scrambling to escape the US's reach.

The US has around 90,000 troops in Afghanistan, fighting insurgents. A total of 1,886 soldiers have lost their lives fighting in the decade-long war.