The Taliban's recent high-profile attacks are a sign of "weakness" that show US-led forces in Afghanistan have seized the initiative in the war, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday.

"Overall, we judge this change in tactics to be a result of a shift in momentum in our favor and a sign of weakness in the insurgency," Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Two days after the assassination of former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, Panetta said as "the Taliban lost control of territory last year they shifted away from large attacks on our forces to greater reliance on headline-grabbing attacks."

Despite the Pentagon's upbeat picture, the course of the war effort remains open to debate and some Western analysts and officials take a more pessimistic view.

Skeptics cite insurgent gains outside of the south, where a US troop buildup has been concentrated, and endemic corruption plaguing the Kabul government.

But Panetta said security generally was improving across the country, without offering specific numbers.

"While overall violence in Afghanistan is trending down -- and down substantially in areas where we concentrated our surge -- we must be more effective in stopping these (high-profile) attacks and limiting the ability of insurgents to create perceptions of decreasing security," he said.

He said the US military is "working with our Afghan counterparts to discuss with them how we can provide better protection against these attacks."

"But the bottom line is that we cant let these sporadic events deter us from the progress that weve made."

Insurgents wounded 77 American troops in a truck bombing of a NATO base this month and carried out a dramatic assault last week on the US embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul that was repelled.

At the same hearing, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said recent attacks and assassinations were designed to sow fear but did not cast doubt on the prospects for success of the NATO-led force.

"These acts of violence are as much about headlines and playing on the fears of a traumatized people, as they are about inflicting casualties -- maybe even more so," Mullen said.

"We must not misconstrue them. They are serious and significant in shaping perceptions, but they do not represent a sea change in the odds of military success."

Mullen, whose tenure as the highest-ranking military officer wraps up at the end of the month, said that the morale of the insurgents was declining and that they "are concentrating their efforts on attacks that will produce a maximal psychological impact for a minimal investment in manpower or military capability."

With August marking the deadliest month so far in the war for US forces, with 71 troops killed, Panetta acknowledged the American casualties, saying that he felt "a heavy burden" as Pentagon chief.

Taliban commander killed after US chopper crash: NATO
Kabul (AFP) Sept 22, 2011 - A Taliban commander who was the target of an operation last month in which 30 US troops died in a helicopter crash has been killed in an air strike, the NATO-led force in Afghanistan said Thursday.

Qari Tahir was killed in an air strike Tuesday in Wardak province, central Afghanistan, six weeks after the helicopter crash caused the biggest single loss of life for foreign forces in ten years of war.

Washington has said it had killed those behind the helicopter's downing, but a senior Afghan government official told AFP that it was Tahir who had lured US forces to the scene by tipping them off about a Taliban meeting.

"Tahir... was the target of a previous combined operation on Aug. 5, 2011, that resulted in the loss of the CH-47 Chinook last month," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.

"He led a group of insurgent fighters throughout the valley and was known to use roadside bombs and rockets to intimidate the local populace."

The US helicopter was shot down killing 38 people including 30 US troops, 25 of whom were special forces.

Many of the victims belonged to the US Navy's "Team Six", the special forces unit that killed Osama bin Laden in a raid on his Pakistani hideout in May. Sources said they were not part of the team that killed the 9/11 mastermind.

Days after the crash, General John Allen, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, said that those who shot the Chinook down had been hunted down and killed in a bombing raid by an F-16 fighter jet.

This claim was denied by the Taliban and a senior Afghan government official told AFP that it was Tahir who was responsible for luring US forces to the scene.

Speaking anonymously, he said Tahir had set a trap for the aircraft to be shot down.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta responded to the crash, which raised doubts over the international mission in Afghanistan, by vowing to "stay the course".

The fatal operation had been targeting the leadership of an "enemy network" within the remote and hostile Tangi Valley, southwest of the capital Kabul, Allen said.

The Afghan police and army have struggled to counter the Taliban in the Tangi valley, according to officials and local people, with insurgents controlling the area.

There are around 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, about 100,000 of them from the US, fighting a Taliban-led insurgency.

All foreign combat forces are due to leave in staged withdrawals leading up to a deadline at the end of 2014, at which point Afghan security forces will assume responsibility for their country.

A string of recent spectacular attacks in the Afghan capital Kabul in recent months has highlighted the strength of the insurgency.

They include Tuesday's assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president tasked with leading Afghan government efforts to talk peace with the Taliban, who was killed by a man with explosives hidden in his turban.

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