Al Qaeda's influence and numbers are rapidly growing in Afghanistan, with fighters operating from new havens and mimicking techniques learned on the Iraqi battlefield for use against U.S. and allied troops, U.S. intelligence officials said.

Five years after the United States drove al Qaeda and the Taliban from Afghanistan, both groups were back, waging a "bloody insurgency" in the south and east of the country, The Washington Post reported Thursday, quoting remarks of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Michael Hayden before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

U.S. support for the Kabul government of Hamid Karzai would be needed for at least a decade to ensure that the country did not fall again, he said.

At Wednesday's Senate hearings, devoted mostly to Iraq, Hayden and Michael Maples, director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, painted a stark portrait of a struggling Afghanistan and a successful al Qaeda capable of operating on two battlefields.

"The direct tissue between Iraq and Afghanistan is al Qaeda," said Hayden. "The lessons learned in Iraq are being applied to Afghanistan."

The Taliban, aided by al Qaeda, "has built momentum this year" in Afghanistan and that "the level of violence associated with the insurgency has increased significantly," the CIA chief said.

Maples said the insurgency "had strengthened its capabilities and influence" with its base among Pashtun communities in the south of Afghanistan, as violence this year had almost doubled since 2005.

Bush administration officials have repeatedly said that the battle against al Qaeda has led to the death or capture of more than half of Osama bin Laden's top people.

Hayden said al Qaeda had lost a series of leaders since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but the losses had been "mitigated by what is, frankly, a pretty deep bench of low-ranking personnel capable of stepping up to assume leadership positions."

Source: Xinhua