WASHINGTON, Oct 29: President George Bush has said that Pakistan was one of the few countries that radicals had specifically targeted for a takeover. “The terrorists’ goal is to overthrow a rising democracy, claim a strategic country as a haven for terror, destabilize the Middle East, and strike America and free nations with ever-increasing violence,” he said. “Over the past few decades, radicals have specifically targeted Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Jordan for potential takeover,” he added.

But later in his speech, delivered on Friday at the world’s largest navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, Mr Bush assured his audience: “We are working with President Musharraf to “oppose and isolate the militants in Pakistan.”

In his reference to Pakistan, Mr Bush said that it was one of the places where militants, often associated with Al Qaeda, were found in regional groups, paramilitary insurgencies and separatist movements. The list also included Somalia, the Philippines, Chechnya, Kashmir and Algeria.

Mr Bush said that some in the Arab news media fan anti-American feelings among the Muslims, “with seldom a word about American action to protect Muslims in Afghanistan, and Bosnia, and Somalia, and Kosovo, and Kuwait, and Iraq, and with seldom a word about our generous assistance to Muslims recovering from natural disasters in places like Indonesia and Pakistan.” He recalled that working with Britain, Pakistan and other nations, the US had disrupted a black-market operation in nuclear technology.