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| 08 April 2004 | Thursday | 17 Safar 1425 |
Islamabad needs aid, not troops: President
CANBERRA, April 7: President Gen Pervez Musharraf said on Wednesday that Pakistan needed aid, not foreign troops, to help rid tribal areas of Al Qaeda and other foreign militants.
In an interview with Australia's SBS Dateline television programme which was scheduled to be aired late on Wednesday, President Musharraf said funding was needed to build schools, roads, water resources and farming to entice villagers to expel militants that could include senior members of Al Qaeda network.
"We are getting some assistance which is very minimal. We are spending our own money...to bring them into the mainstream of life," Gen Musharraf said. "Resources we want, but troops we have enough." "Money needs to be spent in our tribal areas, where these Al Qaeda ... or Taliban government agents are, (where) we are operating against them," he said.
"We need to carry out reconstruction in the area, (the) army is doing it and the civilians are also doing it," he said. President Musharraf maintained that the war in Iraq was drawing resources from the battle against Al Qaeda leaders and their supporters hiding in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Asked if the US-led Iraq war has been a distraction from the battle against Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants by diverting resources from Afghanistan and Pakistan, Gen Musharraf replied: "Yes indeed".
President Musharraf also complained that the international security force in Afghanistan (ISAF) was not doing enough to help the central government maintain control over the sprawling country.
"The US forces are acting very well, but the ISAF, let me tell you, that very recently they didn't really want to get out of Kabul," he said. Outside Kabul, he said, there are "12 or 13 power centres" held by warlords who will continue to act independently "unless there is a force to control that". "This is now going on but still there are areas where there is (a) vacuum." -Reuters/AFP
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