WASHINGTON, Feb 25: There are CIA paramilitary officers and other US personnel in Pakistan dedicated to look for Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, says a congressional report.

The Congressional Research Service, which advises Congress and writes policy briefs for US lawmakers, says in a recent report that some of these agents are based in Pakistan as "civilian contractors."

The report points out that both Osama bin Laden and Al Zawahiri escaped the December 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan and, "according to most assessments, fled into Pakistan, where they have continued to elude capture by Pakistani forces and agents."

The report notes that a March 2004 Pakistan forces' offensive against suspected terrorist hideouts in the South Waziristan region, failed to find these two or other major Al Qaeda figures.

In December 2004, the report says, President Pervez Musharraf also acknowledged that the "trail has gone cold," a characterization generally backed by US observers. Although Osama and Zawahiri remain at large, US officials say that much progress has been made against Al Qaeda, but that more remains to be done.

The CRS report quotes former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet as telling a congressional hearing last year that "the Al Qaeda leadership structure we charted after Sept 11 is seriously damaged, but the group remains as committed as ever to attacking the US homeland... But do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting Al Qaeda is defeated. It is not."

The CRS says that the Bush administration points to the capture or killing of senior Al Qaeda leaders as evidence of progress against Al Qaeda, adding that some key Al Qaeda operatives were arrested in Pakistan by Pakistani law-enforcement agencies.

Of the top 37 top Al Qaeda operatives identified by US agencies after Sept. 11, 2001, 15 have been killed or captured. The most notable among them include: number three leader Mohammad Atef (killed in Afghanistan by US Predator); Sept 11 planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (arrested by Pakistan); key recruiter and planner Abu Zubaydah (arrested by Pakistan); Southeast Asian affiliate operational leader Hanbali (Riduan Isammudin), a key operative of Jemaah Islamiyah (arrested in Thailand); Sept 11 plotter Ramzi bin al-Shibh (arrested by Pakistan); and Abdul Ali al-Harithi, key plotter in Yemen (killed by US Predator in Yemen).

In the aggregate, since the Sept 11th attacks, about 3,000 suspected Al Qaeda members have been detained or arrested by about 90 countries, of which 650 are under US control.

According to the CRS, US officials have repeatedly denied that during the Afghan war the United States directly supported those volunteers who came to Afghanistan for fighting the Soviets but the report notes that the United States did covertly finance these Mujahideen factions. From 1981 to 1991, the United States provided about $3 billion to them to facilitate their jihad in Afghanistan.

During this period, neither Osama nor his associates were known to have openly advocated, undertaken, or planned any direct attacks against the United States, although they all were critical of US support for Israel in the Middle East.

The report quotes US officials as saying that Al Qaeda cells and associates have been located in over 70 countries. Among the groups identified as members of the Al Qaeda coalition after the 9/11, virtually all are still active today.

These include the Islamic Group and Al Jihad (Egypt), the Armed Islamic Group and the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (Algeria), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Jemaah Islamiyah (Indonesia), the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (Libyan opposition) and Harakat-ul-Mujahedin (Pakistan, Kashmiri).