Obama aide says US must remain vigilant on terror

WASHINGTON: The United States must maintain a high level of vigilance despite "tremendous work" on security issues since the September 11 attacks, President Barack Obama's top counter-terrorism advisor said Wednesday.

"Al-Qaeda is still there," cautioned John Brennan at a panel discussion on terrorism ahead of the 10-year anniversary of the catastrophic assault on New York and Washington.

"There's a level of vigilance that we need to keep," he said, despite the fact "tremendous work has been done" in securing US interests over the last decade.

"We need to maintain that pressure on Al-Qaeda," he told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, noting that the extremist group's network in Iraq "is still very active."

He also voiced concern that "a lot of senior Al-Qaeda (leaders) live in Libya," a worry given that allied forces are working with rebel factions to secure arms there.

Despite the killing of Osama bin Laden earlier this year and other Al-Qaeda leaders in the past decade, Washington still relies on many allies to hunt and capture terror suspects.

General Michael Hayden, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, added that "the threat remains, the danger is still out there."

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011