<br/>An influential US Senator has questioned why the State Department had not placed the two most important Taliban groups fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan on its list of terrorist organizations and called on US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to do so. Senator Carl M. Levin, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee said after his recent visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan that they were surprised to find out that the Taliban is not on the list that includes al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah as well as some obscure Latin American and Asian groups. <br/><br/>Neither the Quetta Shura Taliban nor the affiliated Haqqani network, based in Pakistan appears on the US department's list of organizations engaged in terrorist activity that threatens U.S. security. Listing can trigger a freeze on assets tied to the groups and other sanctions. Mr. Levin indicated that such a listing would allow the United States to increase pressure on the Pakistani military to crack down on the groups.