President General Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday Pakistan was hunting down Al Qaeda, Taliban and other extremists who remain a threat, two years on from the September 11 attacks in the United States. âWe are operating against Al Qaeda, we are operating against Taliban and we are also operating against sectarian and religious extremism in Pakistan,â Gen Musharraf said in a question-and-answer session aired on the BBCâs website. He admitted that reports of Al Qaeda and Taliban elements finding sympathy in Pakistanâs tribal areas and using it as a base for launching attacks in Afghanistan were âpartially trueâ.
"Define 'partial.'"
"'Bout 99.44 percent..." |
âShall I say itâs partially true â one canât deny, I will be the last person to deny that nothing is happening in the tribal areas of our borders with Afghanistan,â he said.
| Oh, have we quit denying the obvious? |
âCertainly there are elements who may be hiding there and certainly there are abettors who sympathise with them.â He acknowledged the difficulty in tracking down suspects along the porous border with Afghanistan. âOn both sides of the border, there are places which can be utilised as a sanctuary by extremists. I do admit that the border is extremely porous... I cannot at all claim that I can seal the entire border.â But he said Pakistani forces were cracking down on militants. âOn our side of the border we are very effectively on the ground with intelligence organisations set up having access to the entire tribal belt of Pakistan. And a very effective quick reaction force is available, so we can act now on intelligence which we get. So certainly thereâs things happening on our border and we will act against them, as I said, and our forces are fully capable of doing that.â |