Qaeda in tribal areas direct threat to US: CIA

WASHINGTON-The CIA chief says US pressure on al Qaeda along the Pak-Afghan border has put the network ‘off balance’, while also giving credit to Pakistan for its sustained anti-terrorism campaign.

The Central Intelligence Agency, Director Michael Hayden, told a Washington think tank he and the head of Pakistan’s intelligence service, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, shared in a meeting last month common views on how to contain the militant threat. This was despite vociferous Pakistani protests over US military strikes against militants inside Pakistani territory. ‘There’s a lot more commonality on how the threat should be dealt with than many people seem to assume’, Hayden told the Atlantic Council of the US.

In New York, President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday said that US predator attacks were undermining the efforts to win hearts and minds of the people.

‘It’s undermining my sovereignty and it’s not helping win the war or the hearts and minds of people’, President Zardari told the CBS News in an interview.