Britain's Blair to meet Pakistan president

Tony Blair was today turning his attention to Pakistan as part of Western efforts to solidify Islamic backing for strikes on terrorists in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Government is already solidly behind the coalition and Mr Blair’s planned visit today was a sign of the country’s new-found international stature.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was also visiting four Muslim nations to broaden support.

On Thursday, Pakistan became the first Muslim country to say that US evidence connects bin Laden to the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

American officials made a presentation of evidence to Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf earlier this week.

The United States suspects bin Laden, a Saudi exile, of orchestrating last month’s attacks and others against US interests, including 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa and an attack on the USS Cole in Yemen last year.

Bin Laden is said to be hiding in Afghanistan and running his al Qaida terrorist network from there.

The Taliban regime has been ordered to turn him over or face the consequences.

The Taliban say they want proof before considering whether to hand over bin Laden, who has lived in the country since 1996.

‘‘We have been demanding evidence,’’ the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said on Thursday. ‘‘But it seems they are not willing to share whatever they have got.’’

Pakistan’s statement about evidence was the latest sign that Musharraf is unflagging in his commitment to support the United States in its showdown with the Taliban, despite opposition from Pakistan’s small but active Islamic political parties.

Citing ‘‘the material we have seen and studied,’’ foreign ministry spokesman Mohammed Riaz Khan said in a televised news conference: ‘‘This material certainly provides a sufficient basis for an indictment in a court of law.’’

Pakistan was instrumental in the Taliban’s rise to power in 1996 and is the only country that still recognises them as Afghanistan’s legitimate government.