Washington: The United States cannot underestimate the challenge posed by the terrorists, who were getting training in certain parts of Pakistan and south Asia, a senior of the Bush administration said today. "I do think, as the National Intelligence Estimate said, we are very aware and concerned about training activities in certain parts of Pakistan," the Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff told a House Panel.

"I think in the last couple of months, the Pakistani army and government has been more vigorous in pressing on some of those locations where activities are taking place. But I don't think we should underestimate the challenge," Chertoff told the House Committee on Homeland Security in the context of the recent terrorist busts in Germany.

"I think the Danish have confirmed that they saw Al Qaida connections with the people they arrested. And I think the Germans have indicated that the people they arrested, the three individuals, were connected with Islamic Jihad Union, which is an affiliated group", he said. "And I think both countries have confirmed that there was some training activity that occurred in South Asia. You have groups of fighters who are collecting in Pakistan and perhaps in other parts of South Asia, looking for safe havens in which they can train," he said.

And the more space they get, the more efforts we are going to see like what we have seen in Denmark or in Germany, particularly recruiting foreigners coming from Western Europe, training them, and then sending them back in order to carry out missions, the senior administration official said during the course of a hearing on the implementation of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.