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."

Speaking at a news conference in New Delhi after talks with his Indian counterpart, Lavrov said that Moscow's suggested alterations in a European-proposed draft resolution are aimed at ensuring that the path of negotiations is not abandoned, Russian news agencies reported.

"Russia introduced amendments in the Security Council on Iran's nuclear program to help the International Atomic Energy Agency renew negotiations," ITAR-Tass quoted Lavrov as saying. He said Moscow does not want potential paths to a resolution to be blocked, the agency reported.

Lavrov said that the Security Council must not take over the role of the Vienna-based IAEA in resolving the mounting dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which the United States and some of its allies believe is aimed at developing atomic weapons.

"The Security Council should ... help provide for Iranian cooperation with the IAEA, but not replace this organization in the settlement process," ITAR-Tass and RIA-Novosti quoted Lavrov as saying.

Russia, not eager for a vote in the Security Council on sanctions, has repeatedly said the IAEA should play the leading role in efforts to resolve concerns about Iran's nuclear program.

After three weeks of talks at the United Nations, the United States and key European countries remain locked in fundamental disagreement with Russia over how to respond to Iran's refusal to rein in its program by halting uranium enrichment.

The U.S. and European nations want tough sanctions to punish Iran, but Russia - which has close trade ties with Iran and is building the nation's first nuclear power plant - says it will agree only to limited measures targeting the nuclear program.

Russia and China have been publicly pushing for dialogue instead of U.N. punishment, despite the collapse last month of a European Union attempt to entice Iran into negotiations. Russian officials joined top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in calling for talks when Larijani visited Moscow last week.

The Europeans circulated a draft resolution late last month that would order all countries to ban the supply of materials and technology that could contribute to Iran's nuclear and missile programs. It would also impose a travel ban and asset freeze on companies, individuals and organizations involved in those programs.

The draft would exempt the plant being built by Russia at Bushehr, Iran, but not the nuclear fuel needed for the reactor.

Russia proposed major changes that would limit sanctions solely to measures that would keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and would eliminate any travel ban, asset freeze, or mention of Bushehr.

The reconciliatory tones by Larijani came after his meeting last last Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

While Iran is ready to hold talks with the five member states of United Nations Security Council pls Germany, the so-called "5 plus 1" group would only be willing to talk to Iran if the Islamic state accepted the UN resolution 1696 and suspended all enrichment activities prior to the talks.

Iran has so far rejected the 5+1 pre-conditions and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that the West would be eventually forced to give in and Iran would celebrate until the end of the Iranian year (20 March 2007) acknowledgment of its nuclear rights.

The chief nuclear negotiator termed research and development of the enrichment programme as an important issue for Iran "and therefore the course of the enrichment process should be clearly clarified."

Larijani had said last week after his talks in Moscow that suspension of the enrichment process was not the key issue but acknowledgment of Iran's right to pursue nuclear technology."

The Iranian official had several times stressed in the past that the West should clarify for how long Iran should suspend its enrichment programme "and not leave the time-period open-ended."

"We are still willing to hold negotiations which we consider as the only way for finding a settlement? we would then also accept all inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," said Larijani, who is also secretary of the National Security Council.

"If not, then we would go our own way, accordingly," he warned.

Larijani has warned last week with revising cooperation with the IAEA if the UN Security Council approved sanctions against Iran.

The Islamic state Iran has so far installed two cascades of 164 centrifuges in the Natanz plant in central Iran used for enriching the converted uranium from the neighbouring Isfahan plant. The enrichment level at the current phase is, according to Iran, between 3 to 5 per cent.

Iran's aim is to install 3,000 centrifuges until March 20 next year but eventually needs more than 60,000 centrifuges to start enrichment at industrial level and realise its final plan which is producing fuel for its nuclear plants.

The sources said that Abbas and Haneya agreed at their Thursday meeting to have more meetings in the coming days, and Abbas would stay in Gaza for a while to hammer out an agreement on forming the new government.

"They discussed the results of the dialogues held between Fatah and Hamas movements last week in Gaza on the formation of the government and the delivery of the portfolios to those who would join it," said the sources.

The Hamas-led government insists that the formation of a new national unity government should be after Abbas gets guarantees that the siege imposed on the Palestinians would be lifted.

Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of High Education Nasser el-Dein al-Sha'er had earlier said that President Abbas had received oral guarantees from several Arab countries that the siege imposed on the Palestinians would be lifted.

Other sources denied that Haneya and Abbas had failed to reach a consensus during their talks on the national unity government, adding that they agreed to resume their talks in Gaza on Saturday.

Palestinian movements of Hamas and Fatah agreed on replacing the Hamas-led government with a broader unity one to get the Palestinian territory out of the current economic and political crisis. Progress has been made on the issue and some Palestinian officials expect the new government to be declared by the end of November.