KARACHI, Sept 27 Senior Pakistani officials in New York have revealed that the United States has sought to extend drone attacks into Quetta and other areas of Balochistan.

“It wasn't so much a threat as an understanding that if you don't do anything, we'll take matters into our own hands,” a report in British newspaper Sunday Times quoted an official as saying.

It said the US was threatening to launch air strikes on Taliban leadership allegedly present in Quetta.

“Western intelligence officers say Pakistan has been moving Taliban leaders to the volatile city of Karachi, where it would be impossible to strike.

“US officials have even discussed sending commandos to Quetta to capture or kill the Taliban chiefs before they are moved,” the paper said.

It said suspicions remained among US officials that parts of Inter-Services Intelligence agency were supporting the Taliban and protecting Mullah Omar and other leaders in Quetta.

The threat came amid growing divisions in Washington about whether to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan by sending more troops or by reducing them and targeting the terrorists.

This weekend the US military was expected to send a request to Defence Secretary Robert Gates for more troops, as urged by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, the report said.

However, with President Barack Obama under pressure from fellow Democrats not to intensify the war, the administration has let it be known that it is rethinking strategy.

Vice-President Joe Biden has suggested reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan and focussing on Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The camp argues that attacks by drones on Pakistan's tribal areas, where Al Qaeda leaders are allegedly hiding, have been successful. Sending more troops to Afghanistan has only inflamed tensions. “Pakistan is the nuclear elephant in the room,” said a western diplomat.

The Afghan election has strengthened the position of those in Washington who advocate eliminating Taliban leaders in Pakistan.

There have been complaints that fraudulent ballots may account for up to 20 per cent of the 5.5 million votes cast in the polls won by President Hamid Karzai.

The election has left many European leaders struggling to justify sending soldiers to support a government facing accusations of having been fraudulently elected.

Richard Barrett, head of the UN Commission on Monitoring Taliban and Al Qaeda, also believes that the presence of foreign troops has increased militant activity in Afghanistan and made it easier for the Taliban to recruit.

The Sunday Times report warned that drone attacks on Quetta would intensify anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. Some British officials argued that such missions would be “unthinkable”.

It said that while the government of President Asif Ali Zardari was committed to wiping out terrorism, the country's military did not entirely share this view.

It was to shore up President Zardari's domestic standing that President Obama attended a Friends of Pakistan summit in New York on Thursday. On the same day, the US Senate tripled non-military aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year.

The Obama administration hopes such moves will reduce anti-American feeling. A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre found that almost two-thirds regarded the US as an enemy.

Meanwhile Interior Minister Rehman Malik said “The Americans have never told us any location. We need real-time intelligence” to take action.

However, “There has been tacit cooperation over the use of drones. Some are even stationed inside Pakistan, although publicly the government denounces their use,” the paper said.