Official: Al-Qaeda in Iraq strongest since 2006

(AP) The head of the national counterterrorism center says the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq is the strongest it's been since a peak in 2006.

Matt Olsen says al-Qaeda in Iraq has increased the pace of attacks this year.

Olsen is testifying to a Senate committee on the current terror threat to the U.S.

Olsen did not say that al-Qaeda in Iraq poses a direct threat to the U.S. He says the group continues to operate in Syria as well.

In 2006, the group was at its peak in Iraq when it bombed a Shiite mosque and heightened sectarian killings.

On Tuesday, triple bombings struck a group of Shiites marking Ashoura in the eastern city of Baqouba, a former al-Qaeda stronghold, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing eight people, including two children, and wounding 35.

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