October 28, 2001	Sunday	Shaba'an 10, 1422

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LONDON, Oct 27: President Pervez Musharraf said he was determined to continue his support for the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan until the coalition’s aims were achieved, a British daily reported on Saturday.

“Any military campaign has to set objectives and those objectives need to be attained,” Musharraf told The Times.

“You can’t cut a military campaign mid-way without achieving them. Then it would be failure,” he added.

“We haven’t set any limits. We are part of the coalition. The reality on the ground needs to be constantly assessed. But my assessment is that we go on until the objectives are achieved,” he said.

However, he warned that as the campaign continued the greater would be the toll of civilian casualties and the more public support, not only in the Islamic world, would wane.

“The operation must be as short as possible,” he said.

“We must try to achieve our objectives through military means, and if we are unable to do that within a certain duration, switch to a political strategy that would give us the same objectives,” he added.

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: President Musharraf also urged the United States to take greater care in bombing raids to cut the number of civilian casualties.

President Musharraf said Pakistan was not the only country concerned by the number of civilian casualties.

“There has been, I think, a little bit of excessive collateral damage — that needs to be checked,” he said in an interview with Peter Jennings on ABC’s “World News Tonight.”

Asked if he believed too many civilians were dying in raids to flush out members of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network, Musharraf said:

“Well one doesn’t know the figures. This view of children and women being injured and suffering is the collateral damage that I’m talking of. That’s causing considerable concern all over the world, including Pakistan.”

President Musharraf repeated his advice that the bombing should stop during the month of Ramazan which will start about mid-November.

“Personally I would be against it (bombing during Ramazan) because that would give an excuse for all those who are against the action in Afghanistan — that would give them an excuse to raise their voice more against action in Afghanistan,” he said.

He said if this is checked, (civilian casualties) the US-led bombing campaign would be closer to “the attainment of (its) military objectives.”

DAILY TELEGRAPH: President Musharraf, in another interview published on Saturday said that the US-led military campaign on Afghanistan must continue until it achieves its objectives.

But he was quoted by Daily Telegraph as saying a long war resulting in many civilian casualties would severely dent public — especially Muslim — support.

“We haven’t set any limits. We are part of the coalition...but my assessment is that we go on until the objectives are achieved,” he said.

But “the operation must be as short as possible”.