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Perv admits al-Qaeda leaders killed in Damadola
President Pervez Musharraf said on Tuesday that Al Qaeda fighters were probably killed in a suspected CIA air strike that killed 13 civilians in Damadola village in Bajaur Agency earlier this month.Now that weve started investigating the reality on the ground, yes, we have found that there are foreigners there. That is for sure, Musharraf said in response to a question at the Oslo Nobel Institute following his lecture on Pakistans Role for Peace and Development in the Region and Beyond. There is indication that there were some people, also Al Qaeda people, who have gotten killed. Now we need to ascertain that. Im not 100 percent sure of that, he added. The president said Pakistan contacted the United States after the air strike on Damadola village. Yes, indeed, they do assure that they will not act against Pakistans interest, he said, without giving details. My regret is that these foreigners are there and we need to eliminate (them), he added. He said Pakistans armed forces were capable of combating Al Qaeda militants without outside interference. We dont want interference in Pakistan ... only Pakistan forces will act, said Musharraf. He dismissed criticisms by opposition politicians that his government was too servile in allying itself with the US war on terror. He said that Pakistan was acting in its own interests. We are first of all doing something for ourselves, he said, adding that peace was a condition for economic growth. Asked whether he was concerned about Irans nuclear ambitions, Musharraf said: Iran is our neighbour. There is no threat from Iran to Pakistan. He added that Pakistan opposes nuclear proliferation. Earlier on Tuesday, Musharraf met with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and had lunch with King Harald. He was also to meet with representatives of the Norwegian telecom company Telenor. Speaking to reporters after talks with Stoltenberg, he said that only dozens of Al Qaeda fighters remained in Pakistan. Weve taken over their sanctuaries. Where they were in the hundreds, now they are only in the dozens around in the mountains and we are chasing them, he said. Musharraf said Pakistan had done more than any other to crack down on Al Qaeda, arresting 700 militants and deploying 50,000 troops to scour trackless mountainous areas where he said British colonialists never dared to venture. We are succeeding. It will take some time, you have to show patience, he said. There are no limits. We will go anywhere. He said that only a long-term Muslim Renaissance could defuse the threat from religious extremism. Military action against mountain hideouts of Islamic militants was only a short-term fix. We are trying to introduce a Muslim Renaissance as I call it, he said. In the long run, he planned to work against extremism through school curricula, the teaching of tolerance in Islam and by integrating madrassas into the general education system. Norway on Tuesday agreed to cancel $20 million of Pakistans $45 million debt on condition that Islamabad spends an equivalent amount on reconstruction efforts in the regions devastated by last Octobers earthquake. There was tight security for Musharrafs visit to Norway the first by a Pakistani head of state. Norway is home to about 30,000 Pakistani-born immigrants. Musharrafs visit is part of a weeklong tour of the Middle East and Europe, and he is also due to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-01-25 |
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