Voicing concern over raging violence in Afghanistan, the US and Australia on Friday bluntly told Pakistan that it needed to do more to check the Taliban from regrouping on it soil, with Canberra describing its porous tribal belt as the “international hotbed of terrorism”.

“What we do need to do to is to look hard how the Taliban is regrouping, why the Taliban is fighting in the way they are now,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at a joint press conference with Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith.

Rice said there was an uptick in the terrorism, not just against forces, but against the Afghan people.

“In that regard, everybody needs to do more ...Pakistan does need to do more,” Rice told reporters in Perth.

“Militants cannot be allowed to organise there, plan there, and more needs to be done,” she said when asked about Pakistan’s action against the Taliban in its border areas.

Backing Rice’s demand, Smith said there is no doubt that the current international hotbed of terrorism is in that area, is in the Pakistan-Afghan border area.

“We don’t believe that can be regarded simply as a bilateral matter between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the Australian minister said. “We do need to engage Pakistan more in a dialogue.”

The comments came ahead of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s meeting with President George W Bush in Washington where the Pakistani leader is expected to face a grilling on Islamabad’s efforts to check the Taliban which US officials say have been ineffective.

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