QUETTA, Pakistan, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Pakistani authorities must break the back of a terrorist "triangle" in the country in order to restore peace, the interior ministry said.
The U.S. State Department announced last week that it designated the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, as a terrorist organization.
Daniel Benjamin, the coordinator for counter-terrorism at the State Department, said the Pakistani Taliban has a "symbiotic relationship" with al-Qaida forces in the country.
Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, during a visit to Quetta in Pakistan's eastern province of Balochistan said that Pakistani forces needed to take on the triple threat posed by the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaida and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Associated Press of Pakistan reports.
"We have to break up the triangle of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and al-Qaida on war footing because without this, peace cannot be restored," he was quoted as saying.
Members of the militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi were arrested for alleged ties to the assassination of a political leader in Karachi in August.
Malik said the government in Islamabad had run out of patience with insurgents.
"I have come here to evolve a strategy and use force where it is needed," he warned.