U.S. President Barack Obama says Pakistan needs to show it is “serious” about cracking down on militant networks operating on its territory in the wake of the latest mass killing of students.
In an interview with the Press Trust of India published on January 24, Obama praised recent crackdowns by Pakistani security forces but said more should be done to eradicate violent Islamist groups.
"Pakistan has an opportunity to show that it is serious about delegitimizing, disrupting, and dismantling terrorist networks," Obama told the news agency in Washington.
Twenty-one people were killed on January 20 in an attack at a university campus in Pakistan's tribal northwest, which was claimed by a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, barely a year after a massacre at a school in Peshawar that killed more than 150 people.
A military offensive against extremists in Pakistan's tribal areas was stepped up after the Peshawar attack, although Indian officials say authorities across the border still turn a blind eye to extremist Islamist groups.
