The White House is dispatching national security adviser Gen. James L. Jones and CIA director Leon E. Panetta to Pakistan to push Islamabad to intensify efforts to investigate the Times Square bomb plot and take steps to close terror's "safe haven" in that country, according to the New York Times.

The two top security officials are expected to arrive in Islamabad on Tuesday in the highest-level American visit to Pakistan, it said citing administration officials, since Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan born naturalised Pakistani immigrant, drove a crude car bomb into Times Square on May 1.

General Jones would not threaten the Pakistanis, but would convey the risks to the country's relationship with the United States if a deadly terrorist attack originated there, the Times said citing a senior administration official. He plans to prod them to take tougher steps against the Taliban and other insurgent groups, the official was quoted as saying.