Efforts are under way to designate Taliban as a foreign terrorist organisation, enabling the United States to indict a number of critical people involved with the financial wing of the Al Qaeda.

The issue of the designation of the Taliban came up during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's testimony on Thursday at a House Appropriations Sub Committee.

Rice, when asked about the status of the Taliban, maintained that the Afghan outfit has already been designated as a terrorist organisation under an earlier executive order.

"As I understand it, it is designated as a global terrorist organisation under an executive order and the work is being done to designate it as a foreign terrorist organisation. And so I think, in due course, as they go through that procedure, it will be brought for designation," Rice said in response to a query from Republican Congressman Mark Steven Kirk.

The Illinois lawmaker told Rice that Drug Enforcement Agency has been holding the view that the fact that the Taliban has not been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation is interfering with the ability to indict a number of critical people involved with the financial wing of the Al Qaeda.

"I think 26 other organisations, including Hamas, are designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Can we go ahead and, sort of, go with the common sense and designate the Taliban as a terrorist organization," Kirk asked.

Rice also assured the Congressional panel that efforts are underway to try and locate Osama bin Laden and the top leadership of the Al Qaeda.

"I won't say too much, obviously, but special units that are spending an awful lot of time trying to do precisely that. The truth of the matter is, he hides in very remote areas, we assume, and it's very hard," Rice said.

"I will just say, it is not a one-man show, and we have captured and killed significant -- that significant field generalship leadership of Al Qaeda, people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubayda and, in fact, in Iraq, Zarqawi, and the people who operationally run things, we have made a real dent in that leadership," she added.

"So they must be by now onto team B or C or D in terms of that generalship. And I think we should not underestimate that, although I do not know where he is, and we would not know that we have got him until we have got him. But I can assure you, people are working very hard to try to find him," Rice told lawmakers.