Al-Qaida 'off balance but still biggest terror threat'

US pressure on al-Qaida near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan has put the group "off balance," but the region remains the biggest terrorism threat to America the CIA has said.

Agency Director Michael Hayden also told a Washington think tank he and the head of Pakistan's intelligence service, Lt General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, shared in a meeting last month common views on how to contain the militant threat.

This was despite heated Pakistani protests over US military strikes inside Pakistan aimed at stopping al-Qaeda and Taliban cross-border attacks in Afghanistan.

"There's a lot more commonality on how the threat should be dealt with than many people seem to assume," Hayden told the Atlantic Council of the United States.

There may be Taliban elements the United States could talk to, he said, to fracture its alliance with al-Qaeda, a view also expressed by advisers to President-elect Barack Obama.

He said several veteran al-Qaeda fighters and commanders had died over the past year, "by violence or natural causes", adding: "When we take terrorists like this off the battlefield ... those that remain are feeling some heat."