Pakistan at risk of being bombed, sanctioned

Pakistan will suffer from sanctions and "they may even start bombing our tribal areas," General Musharraf told local newspaper editors late Thursday, according to the Dawn daily.

He did not specify who would drop bombs on Pakistani territory but he was understood to be referring to the United States, whose troops are combing the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in their two-year hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

Tap Here to Add The Daily Star As A Trusted Source

"If we don't control the tribal areas and they start bombing your tribal areas, what will we do? Let us not be under any illusion," the Nation newspaper quoted Musharraf saying.

Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are believed to be using bases in Pakistani tribal areas along the porous border to orchestrate a bloody guerrilla campaign against aid workers and troops inside Afghanistan. Eighteen of them were captured and eight killed by Pakistani troops near the Afghan border on October 2.

Musharraf issued the warning in the midst of an intensified crackdown on Islamic extremists, targetting already-outlawed groups which had reemerged under new names.

Authorities are also swooping on suspected Taliban sympathisers among illegal Afghan immigrants in the southwest border province Baluchistan.

Since Saturday Musharraf has banned six radical groups and placed one under surveillance, accusing them of promoting extremism and religious intolerance.

Police in Baluchistan have arrested 500 Afghan illegal immigrants and begun deporting them.

Musharraf said the world had started suspecting that he and the government were supporting extremists and terrorists.

Bombs would be dropped and sanctions slapped on Pakistan "if this perception is not removed urgently," Dawn quoted him saying.

"This is one area which will drown us."

Scores of radical Islamic extremist groups sprouted in Pakistan in the wake of the 1979-1989 war to oust Soviet invaders from neighbouring Afghanistan and since the start of a guerrilla insurgency in disputed Kashmir against Indian forces in 1989.