Musharraf pulls out of Afghan peace meeting

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf pulled out of a meeting of more than 600 Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders, an apparent snub to a US-backed strategy to stem rising border violence that has destabilised both countries.

Afghan officials shrugged off the pull-out, saying that tribal leaders – the countries’ ground-level powerbrokers – would still attend the ’jirga’ session today in Kabul, to be held under a white tent where the country’s post-Taliban Constitution was hammered out in 2004.