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| India-Pakistan |
| Perv notes al-Qaeda violates Pakistani sovereignty |
| 2006-01-27 |
| President Pervez Musharraf has said in an interview with CNN that besides the United States, Al Qaeda also violates Pakistan’s sovereignty as it operates from within Pakistani territory. “While we are angry at the violation of (our) sovereignty by the US, I am also angry at the violation of (our) sovereignty by Al Qaeda,” Gen Musharraf told CNN’s Richard Quest at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He said he believed around five or six Al Qaeda operatives were killed in the Bajaur air strike. But, he added that the US attack was an unjustified violation of an agreement that Pakistani forces should handle operations against Al Qaeda inside their territory. Pakistan summoned the US ambassador to protest shortly after the attack. “We were disappointed,” President Musharraf told CNN. “Intelligence is coordinated between our two countries, and there is cooperation on both sides at a strategic and tactical level. So it’s a disappointment and we hope this is not repeated.” Asked whether he had received assurances that the attack would not be repeated, President Musharraf said he was ‘pretty confident. This assurance was there and we hope that it doesn’t happen again.’ He said operations against Al Qaeda along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan had been successful even though bin Laden and al-Zawahiri remained at large. He highlighted the death last month of a top Al Qaeda official, Abu Hamza Rabia, north of the border town of Miram Shah. “We have arrested about 700 al Qaeda operators ... innumerable people have been eliminated, arrested and deported. The latest was Hamza Rabia, the number three man of Al Qaeda, whom we got in the mountains. This is a lot of success.” |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |