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'US paid Pakistan for terrorists'
26/09/2006 14:02 - (SA)
Paul Garwood
Islamabad - The United States paid Pakistan millions of dollars to hand over al-Qaeda terrorists, including the September 11 attacks mastermind who was also behind the London subway bombings and a plot to strike Heathrow Airport, Pakistan's president says in his memoir.
General Pervez Musharraf, in his book In The Line of Fire, also said he had no choice after the September 11, 2001, attacks but to switch from supporting the Taliban to backing the US-led war on terror groups or face an American "onslaught".
Musharraf, 63, also criticises the US-led invasion of Iraq, saying it has exacerbated "extremism" and made the world "more dangerous".
Musharraf, who is on a tour of the US, is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with President George W Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to seek ways to bridge their disagreements on the fight against Islamic militants, particularly along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier.
9/11 mastermind
Unusual in publishing a memoir while still in power, Musharraf's book, released on Monday, details some of almost 700 arrests of al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan, including the killers of US journalist Daniel Pearl.
"We have captured 689 and handed over 369 to the United States. We have earned bounties totalling millions of dollars," he says without saying how much was provided.
Among those in US custody is ex-al-Qaeda number three Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the September 11 attacks mastermind captured in Pakistan in March 2003.
Musharraf wrote Mohammed was behind the July 7, 2005, London subway bombings and plans to attack Heathrow airport with hijacked passenger planes. It marked the first time anyone had linked Mohammed to the subway attacks that killed 52 people and four bombers.
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