WASHINGTON, Aug 10: Pakistan has not done all it could have to fight terrorism and entwined issues of terrorism and Muslim extremism have put President Pervez Musharraf in an awkward position, says a commentary broadcast on Wednesday by the official Voice of America radio.

Recalling that President Musharraf joined the US-led war against terrorism soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on US soil, the radio notes that the Pakistani leader also had pledged to clean out terrorist sanctuaries in his country but has not yet achieved his objective. VOA receives policy directives from the US government and it is rare for the radio to criticize a foreign leader allied with Washington.

“President Musharraf has repeatedly asserted that his government’s aggressive efforts against terrorists, particularly along the Pakistan-Afghan border, are bearing fruit,” says VOA. The radio quotes President Musharraf as saying that the government’s campaign against terrorism has greatly weakened the terrorists.

“Their back has been broken. About 700 foreigners have been caught, and they are on the run. Their sanctuaries, their command and control bases, their logistic bases, their communication bases — all destroyed,” says the president. But the official American radio observes that “since he made those comments earlier this year, critics have accused Mr Musharraf of not doing enough to curb the Islamic extremists in his country.”

The author, a former VOA bureau chief in Islamabad, Gary Thomas, says that many analysts believe Islamic extremists in Pakistan are “the recruiters, trainers, and financiers of religious-based terrorism.” He recalls that at a recent Washington forum, former ambassador Dennis Ross, who was US special envoy on the Arab-Israeli peace process, said Mr Musharraf’s actions do not always match his rhetoric.

“His tone, his speeches, have actually been superb,” said Mr. Ross. “His call for enlightened moderation is extremely important. But these tend to be speeches which rarely get followed up by a systematic approach on his part.”

Former Assistant US Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs Elizabeth Jones is quoted as saying that Mr Musharraf is struggling to strike the right balance that will satisfy both the United States and the Islamist movement at home.

“The difficulty for him all along has been to find the balance between staying in power, and doing the kind of work, the heavy-duty kind of work that is necessary to help us go after terrorists, but more importantly, to get control of its own society,” she explains.

Alan Kronstadt, a South Asian affairs analyst at the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, says that successive Pakistan governments prior to Mr Musharraf’s have used radical Muslim groups as a political trump card to further domestic or foreign policy ends, particularly in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

“They made use of Mujahideen, they made use of extremist Muslim elements, militants, and later supported the Taliban, which took control of Kabul in ’96. And this again was all seen as part and parcel of forwarding Pakistan’s foreign policy interests in Afghanistan,” he noted.

“And the top level policy reversal has clearly not trickled down to all elements of Pakistan’s security apparatus.” The radio claims that some religious parties in Pakistan “have expressed open sympathy for Al Qaeda and the Taliban” and during the last four years they “have grown in political power.”

“An alliance of six religious parties known as the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal controls outright the state government of one of Pakistan’s four provinces and is the dominant partner in the ruling coalition of another. Radical sympathizers are also scattered in positions in the federal government,” VOA adds It quotes Mr Kronstadt as saying that President Musharraf cannot afford to alienate the religious parties, but at the same time, the Islamic factions also have to be careful not to go too far in their protests because if they do they risk being banned by Mr Musharraf.

“Mr Musharraf has been criticized by democracy advocates for not relinquishing his one-man rule. But US officials have been reluctant to join the critical chorus because, analysts say, of fears of any instability in a nuclear-armed Pakistan,” VOA concludes.