WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday added a senior member of the Pakistani Taliban to a terror blacklist, the State Department said.

US officials will now move to block assets or finances linked to Qari Hussain, described as a top lieutenant in the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, which Washington has already designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

The announcement comes as the Obama administration seeks to intensify pressure on leadership in Islamabad to go after militants who launch attacks on US soldiers in Afghanistan from their safe havens in Pakistan.

The fragile US-Pakistani alliance has showed strains as the White House seeks to demonstrate increasing security in Afghanistan before mid-2011, when it hopes to start bringing home its troops and moving to end a long, expensive war.

The Pakistani Taliban have links with al Qaeda and are suspected of involvement in bomb and suicide attacks across Pakistan. The group has claimed responsibility for being behind the botched attempt to blow up a car bomb in New York's Times Square last year.

US officials believe Qari Hussain trained a Jordanian whose suicide attack in Afghanistan in 2009 killed seven Americans.

“Training camps organized by Hussain are notorious for recruiting and training men of all ages as suicide bombers, and Hussain has gained particular notoriety for his heavy recruitment of children,” the department said in a statement. – Reuters