US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit meant to improve relations with Pakistan, strongly suggested that some Pakistani officials bore responsibility for allowing terrorists from al-Qaeda to operate from safe havens along this country’s frontier.

“I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are, and couldn’t get to them if they really wanted to,” she told a group of journalists on Thursday. “Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know.”

It is extremely rare for an official of Hillary’s rank to say publicly what American politicians have said in more guarded ways for years. The remarks upset her hosts, who have seen hundreds of soldiers and civilians killed as Pakistan has taken on a widening campaign against militant groups that have threatened the country from its tribal areas.

But her sceptical comments also gave voice to the longtime frustration of US officials with what they see as the Pakistan’s lack of resolve in rooting out not only al-Qaeda, but also the Taliban leadership based in Quetta, and a host of militant groups that use the border region to stage attacks on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Hillary’s statement was only one of several pointed remarks on issues such as security, poor tax collection during a day in which she ran into mostly hostile questioning in public appearances intended to soothe relations, suggesting she was no longer willing merely to listen to Pakistan’s grievances.

The shift in tone came after a meeting with university students in which she expressed regret about past injustices in the US-Pakistani relationship, as well as about the disputed American presidential election in 2000, which she said showed that all democracies were flawed.

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