United Nations ? Al-Qaida has spawned a so-called “third generation” of followers skilled in urban warfare and suicide bombings and U.N. sanctions need to be updated to keep up with the changing tactics, a report warned Tuesday.

The committee monitoring sanctions against the terror network and the Taliban said the arms embargo, travel ban and assets freeze have been effective but “the combination of sanctions has still not achieved its full potential.”

“Al-Qaida continues to evolve and adapt to the pressures and opportunities of the world around it and the threat of a significant attack remains real in all areas,” the group said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

“At the same time, there has been a revival of the threat from the Taliban,” it said, adding that recent evidence suggests the remnants of Afghanistan’s ousted hard-line regime have access to more money.

The report was dated Sept. 9 and contained recommendations that will be considered by the U.N. Security Council.

Sanctions currently require all 191 U.N. member states to impose a travel ban and arms embargo against Afghanistan’s former Taliban leaders, Osama bin Laden and his terror network, and to freeze their financial assets.

The committee’s report said al-Qaida’s message remains the same but its operations have expanded to comprise three groups – bin Laden and his deputies, fighters who trained in Afghanistan and new recruits alienated by world events who form cells locally.

It described the new recruits as a third “new and growing generation of supporters who may never have left their countries of residence but have embraced the core elements of the al-Qaida message.”

“These cells are emerging as the main threat posed by al-Qaida terrorism today,” the report said. “They are bound to the leadership by an overall unity of purpose but remain independent, anonymous and largely invisible until they strike.”

They often receive training from “the veterans of Afghanistan or other areas of conflict” or travel to Iraq to gain skills in urban warfare, bombmaking and suicide attacks, then return home where they pose an increased threat.