US and Pakistani military leaders met earlier this week to discuss the growing terror threat in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Pentagon sources said yesterday.

Sources in Pentagon were quoted by US news outlets as saying that participants included Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pakistani Army chief of staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.

The talks, held Tuesday aboard US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean, focused on how to "better work together to defeat extremists on the border and to help Pakistan deal with its own internal threats from extremism."

The meeting came amid a growing acknowledgment by US officials that the Taliban has shifted tactics and is now conducting military-style attacks against US troops.

The US military has been pressing Kayani for months to crack down on militants in the border region in part because of the growing number crossing into Afghanistan to attack American troops.

Mullen said after the meeting that he is not satisfied with the efforts to thwart the threat of terrorism in Pakistan, but thought the US-Pakistani cooperation is moving toward a "right direction."