Washington - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters late Monday while flying to a London conference on Afghanistan that the new US government has stopped referring to the "global war on terror."

   After the terrorist strikes on September 11, 2001, the government under former president George W Bush adopted that phrase to describe its anti-terrorism policies.

   Since President Barack Obama took office in January, the "global war on terror" has disappeared. Clinton said that there was no official ban on the term.

   "The administration has stopped using the phrase, and I think that speaks for itself, obviously," she said, the Washington Post reported on its website. "It's just not being used."

   Last week, Obama announced a new policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan with the main object to root out al-Qaeda, the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden and blamed for the September 11 attacks.

   During the flight, Clinton told reporters that the United States has "very little credibility" in Afghanistan to deliver aid and development programmes, citing widespread failures to implement stability and reconstruction since toppling the al-Qaeda-linked Taliban regime in late 2001.