New Delhi: The United States has asked Pakistan to liquidate terrorist groups operating in the country and end the establishment support for such groups, warning that if Islamabad chose not to act, Washington will find ways to achieve its objectives.

Days after US Secretary of States Rex Tillerson stopped in Islamabad for four hours to deliver a blunt message that American support to Pakistan was ''conditions-based,'' senior US officials who accompanied him on the trip signaled that Washington had devised other ways to achieve its objective of eliminating terrorist groups and stabilising Afghanistan.

"It's up to them whether or not they want to work with us,'' acting assistant secretary of state for South Asia Alice Wells said.  ''And if they don't ... then we'll adjust accordingly,'' she added.

Dismissing Pakistan's bogus narrative - largely for its domestic consumption - that India and US are backing terror groups in Afghanistan that are attacking Pakistan, Wells said Washington wanted Pakistan to show the same commitment it made to defeat militant groups domestically to those threatening Afghanistan or India.

Pakistan's recent tactics include cooking up stories about India's alleged support to the Teherik-E-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and tales of Indian subversives in Pakistan, for neither of which it has produced any conclusive evidence.

It has also invoked support from (real) allies such as China, and purported allies such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Turkey to counter US pressure.

But the Tillerson mission has evidently ignored Pakistan's diplomatic gambits and rebuffed its self-serving narratives that have also been rejected at international forums including at the U.N., where Pakistani officials have attempted to present dossiers claiming Indian subversion in Pakistan.