Washington: Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has said that there are new opportunities with the establishment of a new government in Pakistan and there ought to be better focus in hunting down the al-Qaeda.

"We now know that al-Qaeda is stronger than any time since 2001. We have just received additional intelligence reports from our agencies showing that they are growing in capability. That is something that we have got to address," Senator Obama said on NBC's Meets the press.

"We are also going to have to address the situation in Pakistan, where we now have, in the federated areas, al-Qaeda and the Taliban setting up bases there," he said.

Obama said that with a new government in Pakistan... We have an opportunity to initiate a new relationship. We have got to send a signal to them that we are interested in national security, but we also recognise they re interested in figuring out how do they feed their people and how do they prosper economically. "Instead of just focusing on our issues, we ve got to focus on some of theirs, so that we can get better cooperation to hunt down al-Qaeda and make sure that does not become a safe haven for them," Obama said.

Obama had earlier said that his administration will take unilateral actions in the northern areas of Pakistan in the face of actionable intelligence.

Source : PTI