The US has acknowledged that India as a 'great regional power' has a very high degree of interest in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Washington is now pushing Islamabad to move more troops from the Indian border to the "epicentre of terrorism in western Pakistan".

"These are the men who killed (former Pakistan premier) Benazir (Bhutto), who did Mumbai, who attacked the cricket team in Lahore, who attacked the United States. The epicentre of this area is in western Pakistan," a top US official told the Senate Foreign Relations committee on Tuesday.