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Penetrate Al-Qaeda, Bush tells Musharraf

PRESIDENT George W Bush yesterday warned General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistans military leader, that he must improve his intelligence-gathering to defeat Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the war on terror. His comments were made amid concern that Islamabads grip on the militants within Pakistans borders may be loosening.

On the last leg of his Asian tour, the American president reiterated his support for Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in 1999, but urged him to embrace democracy in the campaign against terrorism.

The best way to defeat Al-Qaeda is to share good intelligence, to locate them and then be prepared to bring them to justice, Bush said.

Despite the evident strains in the Washington-Islamabad relationship, Bush told Musharraf that the two countries had developed a broad and lasting strategic partnership.

Theres a lot of work to be done in defeating Al-Qaeda, the president said.

The contentious issue of sharing intelligence was highlighted in January, when an American missile aimed at Ayman al-Zawahri, Al-Qaedas deputy leader, killed at least three foreign militants and a number of civilians in a Pakistani border village. Pakistan claimed it had received no notice of the attack, which prompted countrywide riots.

Many Pakistanis continue to oppose Musharrafs alliance with the Bush administration and yesterdays visit provoked days of demonstrations.

Police detained hundreds of activists and Islamabad resembled a ghost town under the security clampdown. Bush barely moved outside the vicinity of the presidency building and nearby US embassy, where he batted in an impromptu cricket match with a local boys college.

A rather better-known cricketer, Imran Khan, the former Pakistan captain turned politician, was among the opposition activists gagged during the visit. Prevented from leaving his home, Khan described Musharraf as a toady and a lackey of US foreign policy.

At the heart of Musharrafs problems are his difficulties in bringing any sort of control to Pashtun-controlled Waziristan and the rebellious tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Osama Bin Laden is thought to be hiding in the border area and Bush said Pakistan needed the equipment necessary to move quickly without tipping off the enemy. He said Musharraf was training special forces for the purpose. Its important to stay on the hunt, he said.

A suicide bomber killed an American diplomat and three other people near the US consulate in the southern city of Karachi on the eve of the talks.

Bushs comments highlighted growing concern in the West about Pakistans relations with its Afghan and Indian neighbours. Musharraf himself conceded there has been some slippage with both.

Before Bushs visit, Musharraf claimed several senior Al-Qaeda figures, including a Chechen militant, were among 45 killed in a raid by Pakistan army helicopter gunships on Waziristan. But the move backfired when tribal Taliban militants drove into Miranshah, the provincial capital, in armoured trucks and took control.