President General Pervez Musharraf said on Monday he was a "marked" man because of Pakistan's campaign against foreign and local extremists, and this had restricted his movement.
| "I never sleep in the same bed twice. I keep a .45 under my pillow. I never shake hands with people named 'Herb'. I'm on my fourth food taster..." |
"But I haven't become a hermit," he said in an interview with ABC TV. "I have told them (Al Qaeda) that I don't want them in Pakistan. You will be eliminated. Either you surrender, or we eliminate you. But then they have access to our extremist lot, unfortunately, and they equip them and finance them.
| "In many cases they're indistinguishable from them..." |
"So, the extremist lot - a nexus between Al Qaeda and our extremists - they are the main people who are against me," said the president, who was a target of two assassination attempts last year. Gen Musharraf warned that the United States might lose the war against terrorism if it did not address "root causes" of terrorism - political disputes such as Palestine, poverty and lack of education. "We may be winning battles, but we may lose the war," he said. Poor and illiterate people who feel aggrieved because of political disputes are easy targets for indoctrination by militant groups, he said.
| So we should give them money. Then they can be prosperous and illiterate people who feel aggrieved because nobody lets them be in charge. There are always lots of people who're willing to march in a parade. All you need is somebody to thump the tub. |
He said the US was not popular among Pakistanis because it "abandoned" Pakistan after the Afghan war against the Soviets. |