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STORY: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday (June 7) the United States was reaching the limits of its patience with Pakistan because of the safe havens the country offered to insurgents in neighbouring Afghanistan.
It was some of the strongest language used by a U.S. official to describe the strained ties between Washington and Islamabad.
Panetta was speaking in the Afghan capital, where he arrived for talks with military leaders amid rising violence in the war against the Taliban and a spate of deadly incidents, including a NATO air strike said to have killed 18 villagers.
The United States has long pushed Pakistan to do more to help in the war against militancy, but the relationship has received a series of blows, not least by a unilateral U.S. raid into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden last year which humiliated Islamabad.
"It is very important for Pakistan to take steps. It is an increasing concern, the issue of safe haven, and we are reaching the limits of our patience," said Panetta, who arrived in Kabul a day after a deadly insurgent bombing.
Pakistan's cooperation is considered critical to U.S. efforts to stabilise Afghanistan before most foreign combat troops leave at the end of 2014. Pakistan has strong traditional links with the Afghan Taliban and other militant groups.
