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Pakistan not looking for bin Laden
23/01/2008 07:27 - (SA)
Paris - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on Tuesday that it's more important to battle the remnants of Afghanistan's former Taliban militia than chase after top al-Qaeda leaders.
That Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are still at large "doesn't mean much", Musharraf said in Paris while on an eight-day swing through Europe.
He suggested that those men - wanted the world over and whom he hasn't been able to catch over the past six years - are less of a threat to his regime than the Taliban running roughshod over part of his country. Bin Laden and al-Zawahri are believed to be hiding somewhere in the lawless tribal areas along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.
"The 100 000 troops that we are using ... are not going around trying to locate Osama bin Laden and Zawahri, frankly," Musharraf told a conference at the French Institute for International Relations in Paris. "They are operating against terrorists, and in the process, if we get them, we will deal with them, certainly."
Musharraf under pressure
A top US ally in its war on terrorism, Musharraf has come under increasing pressure following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto last month and for his brief declaration of emergency rule last year.
Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999, insisted the remnants of the former Taliban regime of neighbouring Afghanistan are the "more serious issue" for both countries.
But he nonetheless said there was "zero percent chance" that al-Qaeda or the Taliban could defeat Pakistan's 500 000-strong army or that militants could win control of the government in February 18 parliamentary elections.
As part of the "multi-pronged strategy" against terrorists, Pakistan has set up fences "selectively" and 1 000 checkpoints along the Afghan border in an effort to stop militants from using the areas to launch attacks, he said.
Musharraf credited co-operation between Pakistani intelligence services and the CIA, both of whom believe that militant leader Baitullah Mehsud was the mastermind of the December 27 gun and suicide attack that killed Bhutto.
But in Washington, the US State Department's counterterrorism chief, Dell Dailey, said the Bush administration was displeased with "gaps in intelligence" from Pakistan about al-Qaeda, the Taliban or foreign fighters.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who also met with Musharraf on Tuesday, expressed support for Pakistan's fight against extremists and promised to press for increased European Union aid for the country when France takes over the rotating EU presidency in July, Sarkozy's office said.
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