Pakistan could evict, rather than kill, militants - U.S. official

FILE PICTURE: Police stand guard as Shi'ite Muslim men blocked the main national highway and railway tracks to protest the detention of their religious workers in Karachi, Pakistan November 7, 2016. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan need not kill or capture militants such as members of the Haqqani network that use its territory to launch attacks in Afghanistan but could push them across the border instead, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

Evicting the militants would put them at risk of attack from Afghan and U.S. forces trying to keep Afghanistan from becoming a launching pad for strikes on the West more than 16 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.