September 26, 2008	Friday	Ramazan 25, 1429

PARIS, Sept 25: Extremist forces threaten the very existence of Pakistan, the incoming US commander in the region warned on Thursday, as tension mounted between Nato and Pakistani forces on the Afghan frontier.

General David Petraeus, who will take charge of US forces in southwest Asia and the Middle East next month, said Pakistani and US-led troops would have to work together.

“Pakistan faces a threat that certainly seems to be an existential threat,” he told reporters at the US embassy in Paris.

Gen Petraeus described the common enemy as a ‘syndicate’ uniting “some true Al Qaeda, some Taliban and in between different forms of extremist movements, which are very much contributing to the problem in Afghanistan”.

The general was speaking shortly after it was confirmed that Pakistani forces had fired warning shots near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.

Gen Petraeus said he had yet to be briefed on the incident and refused to be drawn on the circumstances in which he would order a cross-border operation.

Instead, he insisted that he would work in cooperation with the Pakistani military which, he said, faced the same threat.

“I think the only real answer that I can give you at a forum like this is just to say that there has to be coordination, cooperation and very constructive dialogue as that effort goes forward,” he said.

“As was shown tragically and horrifically in the Marriott Hotel bombing, these same extremist elements again represent a true existential threat to Pakistan itself,” he said.—AFP