U.S. General says al Qaeda just surviving in Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) - Pockets of al Qaeda militants will endure in Afghanistan beyond next year's departure of most Western combat forces, but they have lost the ability to mount serious attacks of the kind that triggered the Afghan war, a senior U.S. commander said.

Major-General Joseph Osterman, the deputy operations chief of Afghanistan's NATO-led force, said small numbers of al Qaeda fighters remained entrenched in the rugged eastern mountain province of Nuristan, where the forested terrain and plunging valleys provided natural havens.