SYDNEY : Australia's foreign minister said Sunday that Al-Qaeda had been "disrupted and degraded", disputing claims that the network had gained strength despite nearly six years of the so-called "war on terror."

Alexander Downer was responding to reports in the United States that a new intelligence assessment would show that Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda had rebuilt itself after being heavily targeted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

"I think it's fair to say that in general since 2001, Al-Qaeda has been significantly disrupted and degraded," Downer told Australian television.

"But it's also true to say that Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-related and linked organisations still remain a very serious threat."

The Washington Post said the new intelligence assessment found that Al-Qaeda had established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan for training and plotting attacks.

On Friday the US Senate doubled the bounty on Osama bin Laden to 50 million dollars, reflecting frustration that the group's mastermind remains free and rising anxiety over possible future attacks.

Prime Minister John Howard's government is a strong supporter of US President George W. Bush's "war on terror" and Downer defended the effectiveness of the invasion of Iraq as part of that strategy.

He said US commander General David Petraeus told him in a recent briefing that the US forces and Iraqis had been very successful at turning the tide against al-Qaeda in some parts of the country.

"On the ground the situation at the moment is, I think, a little better than it's been," he said.

Downer said it was too early to write off the US military's "surge" in Iraq as a failure ahead of a key report by Petraeus due in September.

"Certainly in America people saying the surge has failed. Well it's only just begun, and I don't think it's appropriate to make those sorts of comments."

With US fatalities topping the 3,600 mark in Iraq, and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead, US polls show the war is increasingly unpopular with Americans and pressure is growing for troops to be pulled out.

- AFP/ir