WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- No fewer than 18 organizations are loosely affiliated with al Qaeda and are conducting terrorist attacks across the world, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday.

    In the war on terrorism, the enemy was not a nation and not even one particular organization, Rumsfeld said at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

    "No fewer than 18 organizations loosely affiliated with al Qaeda are conducting terrorist acts in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Somalia, Algeria, Russia, Indonesia and elsewhere," he said.

    The defense secretary warned that despite progress made in fighting terrorism, the threat today might be greater than ever before because the weapons available were far more dangerous.

    He said the anti-terrorism war, the enemy, while weakened and under great pressure, was still "capable of global reach" and still trying to do kill Americans with increasingly powerful weapons.

    The U.S. strategy was to prevent the enemy from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, improve homeland defense and intelligence gathering and help friendly nations enhance their capabilities to fight terrorism in their own countries, he said. Enditem