Iraq war 'draining resources from fight against al-Qaida'

The fighting in Iraq is drawing resources from the battle against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf says.

In an interview for Australia’s SBS television, Musharraf said his government was receiving “very minimal” assistance to hunt down leaders of al-Qaida and the Taliban believed to be hiding in the remote, mountainous territories along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“Money needs to be spent in our tribal areas” to help root them out, Musharraf said on the SBS news programme Dateline.

Musharraf, however, has been clear that he does not want US troops on Pakistani soil to help combat the militants. The US-led forces in neighbouring Afghanistan, pressuring the militants from their side, reiterated this week that their operations stopped at the border.

Authorities believe hundreds of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Last month in South Waziristan, one of the semi-autonomous tribal areas, at least 63 foreign and local militants, four dozen Pakistani troops and government officials, and about a dozen civilians were killed in clashes between the Pakistani military and militants.

Musharraf said the continued fighting in Iraq between the US-led occupation forces and Iraqi rebels was a distraction from the war on terror in Pakistan, a key American ally in the fight to stamp out al-Qaida and the remnants of the Taliban.