Take strong action against LeT, Haqqani: Clinton tells Khar

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told her Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar to take strong action against terrorist groups particularly Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Haqqani network, which is blamed for last week's deadly attack on American embassy in Kabul.

Clinton met Khar for a marathon three-and-half hours in New York, which US officials said started and ended with the Haqqani network and counter-terrorism operations of Pakistan. She sought specific action from Pakistan against the Haqqani network, which the US now believes was behind the September 13 attack on its Embassy in Kabul, they said.

US officials, however, would not say if Clinton shared any intelligence information about such a link, but it was clearly evident that concrete evidences were provided to Khar during the meeting, said to be one of the longest meetings of Clinton with any of her foreign counterparts.

"Pakistan understands that the threat that the Haqqanis pose to them, and I think they recognise it's time for them to take action," a senior State Department official told reporters after the meeting in New York.

"We were specific about the need for Pakistan to take action on the Haqqani Network," the official added.

"The attacks in Kabul on the 13th of September changed the nature of the meeting. Although it still lasted a good long time and we did review the whole nature of our relationship, that as you heard before, the issue of counterterrorism and particularly the issue of the Haqqani network was, as you can imagine, the first thing on the Secretary's agenda and also the last," said the official.

Clinton's message was that given the efforts of the Haqqani network on the embassy attack that this was an issue that they had to deal with and that this is a threat to both Pakistan and the United States, the official said.

Khar, according to the state department official, was quite clear in return that Pakistan "couldn't condemn more" the attacks of September 13 on the US.

Embassy and International Security Assistance Force headquarters, and that this kind of terrorism was a threat to Pakistan and to Pakistanis as well.

"That part of the conversation concluded that joint efforts need to be made to end this threat from the Haqqanis, and that Pakistan and the United States ought to be working together on this and not separately," the official said.

Responding to questions, the official said LeT was part of this conversation between Clinton and Khar.

"The Pakistani side talked to us about the continuing threat from the Tehrik-i-Taliban on Pakistanis. We talked also about the Taliban, safe havens and enablers that allow them to attack inside of Afghanistan," the official said.

"I hope what we achieved was, first and foremost, clarity on the need to do something about counter-terrorism and specifically about the Haqqanis, and secondly, that it is possible for the United States and Pakistan to work together to identify those interests that we have in common and then figure out how to act on them together," the official said.

The official said Clinton herself wanted a long meeting with her Pakistani counterpart so that she could discuss where the relationship was headed particularly after the attack on the US embassy in Kabul.