Members of the US Senate have reportedly urged the Bush administration to launch direct military strikes at alleged al-Qaeda targets inside Pakistan.

This has, in turn, prompted the Pakistani envoy in Washington to warn that such an attitude could bring down the present set-up in Islamabad.

Senior Pentagon officials added fuel to the fire by claiming that their troops have already targeted Taliban and al-Qaeda sites inside Pakistan and that they have an agreement that allows them to do so.

Senator Carl Levin, Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that the panel would press the Defense and State departments to consider taking military action against alleged al-Qaeda camps inside Pakistan "if they learn that attacks inside Afghanistan have been planned at these sites."

"It's a critically important point, and I think we've got to insist, on this issue, that we be given a clear answer," the Dawn quoted Levin as saying.

Lt-Gen Douglas Lute, chief operations officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, however, told the committee that US soldiers could target terrorist sites inside Pakistan if there's an imminent threat. "We have all the authorities we need to pursue, either with (artillery) fire or on the ground, across the border. If just across the border, inside Pakistan, we have surveillance systems that detect a Taliban party setting up a rocket system which is obviously pointed west, into Afghanistan, we do not have to wait for the rockets to be fired. They have demonstrated hostile intent and we can engage them."

Retired US Marine Gen. James Jones, former top NATO operational commander in Afghanistan, also told the panel that forces under the US command called Operation Enduring Freedom have a legal right to strike across the border.

"That mission, everybody agrees, could be done," he added.

Lt-Gen Lute, however, clarified that they would have to seek the Pakistan government's permission to go after a munitions factory further inside the Pakistani border.

Pakistan remained the target throughout the debate, with both Democrat and Republican senators claiming that the country is either unwilling or unable to prevent the Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents from establishing camps inside the tribal zone.

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama said that if international laws allowed the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the same laws could be applied to take actions against al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries inside Pakistan.

Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana said that the Pakistani leaders "need to contemplate which is harder for them, acting to do something about this, or us acting to do something about this."

The only person who spoke for Pakistan was the committee's former chairman, now senior Republican Party member John Warner. "I think under the leadership of Musharraf, they're doing the best they can, but the realities are there's fragility in the political system in Pakistan," he explained.

Senator Warner said that the situation would be much worse for the United States and its allies if Islamists came to power in Pakistan.