Qaeda ability to carry out large attacks diminished: US

WASHINGTON: Al-Qaeda”s ability to carry out large-scale complex strikes has “diminished” due to recent aggressive campaigns against it, but the terror network is trying to launch smaller attacks which are much more difficult to detect and thwart, the US Defence Department has said.

“Their (al-Qaeda and its extremist allies) ability to launch large-scale, complex attacks has clearly been diminished by the fact that we have taken the war as aggressively as we have to them,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

“Now, has al-Qaeda and other associated terrorist groups, have they been able to disperse and crop up elsewhere? Yes.