US to press Pak to act against all terror groups: Clinton

The US would keep on pressing Pakistan to act decisively against all terror groups within its territory as “just knocking down Taliban somewhere” does not affect the militants’ widespread syndicate, secretary of state Hillary Clinton has said.

“We are going to keep pressing (Pakistan). This is the highest priority to us,” she told the popular Charlie Rose show.

The US is encouraged and supportive of what Pakistan is doing and wants “more help against our common enemy,” Clinton said.

Asked if she is convinced that Pakistan now understands that the Taliban is their enemy, she said Islamabad is now “evidencing that.”

Clinton, who was recently in Pakistan, said Pakistanis understand too “that you can’t just play Whack-A-Mole” — a machine game where moles begin to pop up from holes at random and the aim is to force the individual moles back into their holes by hitting them directly on the head with the mallet.

“You can’t just knock down the Taliban somewhere and expect you’re done, because they have unfortunately created this syndicate, this network of interconnected terrorist groups,” she said. “So the Pakistanis have to be vigilant.”

The top US diplomat said that in her conversations with both civilian government leaders and military intelligence, she found an awareness that the Taliban is not just about somebody else’s fight, “it is a direct attack on the authority of the Pakistani Government”.