CAIRO, May 29, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) - The Bush administration is reviewing its anti-terror strategy with an eye on broadening its current focus from targeting Al-Qaeda leaders linked to the 9/11 attacks to "violent extremism" a leading American daily reported on Sunday, May 29.

"What we really want now is a strategic approach to defeat violent extremism," a senior administration official told the Washington Post on condition of anonymity.

The review, the first since the 9/11 attacks, is the culmination of a debate about how to target not only Al-Qaeda but also broader support in the Muslim world for "radical Islam", said the mass-circulation daily.

A new campaign targeting "violent extremism" could also prove controversial, given disputes in the Middle East about how to categorize groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine that act as political parties while also designated terrorist by Washington, the Post noted.

"You can't start drawing very precise lines -- security/counterterrorism versus the broader efforts to deal with the roots of terrorism," said an intelligence official who had urged the review.

The daily said administration officials have declined to specify the policies under consideration in the review.

But several sources familiar with the discussions said some issues remain sticking points, such as how central the war in Iraq is to the anti-terror effort.

"It's a new piece of a new equation," a former Bush administration official said.

"'If you don't know who they are in Iraq, how are you going to locate them in Istanbul or London?"

Several officials told the paper that the review may lead to a new national security presidential directive, superseding the October 2001 document signed by Bush that pledged the "elimination of terrorism as a threat to our way of life."

The shift is meant to recognize the transformation of Al-Qaeda over the past three years into a far more amorphous and difficult-to-target organization, said the Post.

Frances Fragos Townsend, President George W. Bush's top adviser on terrorism, said the review is needed to take into account the "ripple effect" from years of operations targeting Al-Qaeda leaders.

"Naturally, the enemy has adapted," she told the Post.

"As you capture a Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an Abu Faraj al-Libbi raises up. Nature abhors a vacuum."

Critics, however, say the review followed months of delay and lost opportunities while the administration left key counterterrorism jobs unfilled and argued internally over how to confront the spread of Al Qaeda.

The discussions over the US shift of policies come as a newly published US Army War College assessment concludes that the administration has failed to define the overall aim of the war on terrorism, The Boston Globe reported on Sunday.

The analysis, by professor Stephen D. Biddle, a leading researcher at the Army War College, said the US has failed to apply the necessary resources to match its stated goal of spreading democracy across the Middle East.

It asked the Bush administration to quickly choose whether to devote more troops and money to the endeavor or else limit the military's objectives and pull back from the region.

''In the three years since 9/11, the administration has yet to arrive at a clear definition of the enemy or the aim in the war on terrorism," according to the study.

''To date, American policy has combined ambitious public statements with ambiguity on critical particulars.

''The costs of pursuing such ambitious but ill-defined goals have been high but tolerable," the report continued.

• Click here to read The Boston Globe complete report.