Pakistan rejects al-Qaida hideout claims

Pakistan today rejected the US intelligence chief’s claims that Osama bin Laden and his deputy are hiding in the country, and that al-Qaida is setting up camps near the border with Afghanistan.

President General Pervez Musharraf, however, acknowledged that foreign militants were in Pakistan’s tribal regions along the Afghan border and warned them to leave, the state-run news agency reported.

New US intelligence chief Mike McConnell told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Monday that al-Qaida is trying to set up training camps and other operations in Pakistan tribal areas near Afghanistan.

McConnell also said US intelligence officials believe bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are hiding in north-western Pakistan and trying to establish an operations base there.

“We deny it,” Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said, referring to McConnell’s remarks.

Sherpao said there are no al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan, and that US officials have not shared any such intelligence with Pakistani authorities.

US Vice President Dick Cheney, visiting Pakistan on Monday, met Musharraf to seek his help in foiling an anticipated spring offensive by the Taliban and al-Qaida against US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.

“Cheney expressed US apprehensions of regrouping of al-Qaida in the tribal areas (of Pakistan) and called for concerted efforts in countering the threat,” Musharraf’s office said.

Musharraf, however, told Cheney that Pakistan is already doing its utmost against the militants.

Musharraf vowed today to take “stiff action” to expel foreign militants from Pakistan’s mountainous border regions, the Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported.

“People have come there from outside. They are living in our mountains and spreading terrorism not just in Pakistan but in the entire world,” APP quoted Musharraf as saying at a public meeting in the southern Sindh province.

“These people are putting Pakistan in danger. These people should leave and go, otherwise we will have to deal with them and we are dealing with them,” he said.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its campaign against terrorism, but US officials complain that al-Qaida and Taliban still operate from Pakistan’s rugged border areas in launching attacks in Afghanistan.

Sherpao said Pakistan was a front-line state in the war on terror, and that it is “fighting the scourge of terrorism in the best interest of Pakistan.”

He asked Washington for “solid intelligence” on the whereabouts of bin Laden or any al-Qaida camps.

“We will act on any such intelligence, but so far they have not done it (provided any),” he said.