Washington: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet has told a US Congressional panel that while focusing on the war against the al-Qaida, the US must also pay attention to the Indo-Pakistan and Israeli-Arab situations.

"As critical as terrorism is, our people will not concentrate solely on counter- terrorism. Even last year, when national attention was focused on terror, other events occurred... the risk of an Indian-Pakistani war and the deterioration of the situation in the Middle East are just two examples," Tenet said in written statement to the panel.

"The intelligence community must keep skilled, experienced officers on all such issues."

Tenet also said that militants who received training in camps set up in Afghanistan by Osama bin Laden during the Taleban regime were sent afterwards to fight in jihads in Kashmir, Chechnya and Bosnia.

Extremists in the larger camps formed the foundation of a worldwide network by sponsoring and encouraging Islamic extremists from diverse locations to forge longstanding ideological, logistical and personal ties, he said.

Extremists in the larger camps received basic training in the use of small arms and guerrilla tactics. In the smaller camps, militants received more advanced and specialised training in explosives, poisons and assassination techniques.

The CIA, he revealed, has been working not only against al-Qaida but also against Hizbollah, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-gamaat, Palestinian groups, the Shining Path in Peru, Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines and the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka.

PTI