The United States has stepped up direct talks with the Afghan Taliban for a political settlement to a war that is now in its 10th year, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, a move that analysts said earlier was made easier by the death of Osama bin Laden.

A US official attended at least three meetings in Qatar and Germany, including one "eight or nine days ago" with a Taliban official considered close to the group's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the report said, citing an Afghan official.

It said that Washington is aiming for progress in this avenue before July, when President Barack Obama announces the first troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, ahead of handing over security to Afghan forces by 2014.

The report about the talks comes more than two weeks after the death of bin Laden at the hands of US special forces in Pakistan, which analysts said would allow the Taliban to more easily break step with Al Qaeda.

The Taliban sheltered Bin Laden in Afghanistan for years, until US-backed Afghan forces toppled them in 2001, unleashing a war between NATO and the Islamist group.

A new study shows despite battlefield gains against insurgents in southern Afghanistan, the US is failing to win over Afghans in the heartland of the Taliban.