ISLAMABAD, 1 July 2007 — President Gen. Pervez Musharraf received another blow from his critics yesterday when Chief Election Commissioner Qazi Muhammad Farooq called Musharraf’s active support of his favorite political parties as “inappropriate.”

The official made his comment while hearing a petition from a Jamaat-e-Islami delegation comprising Liaquat Baluch, Fareed Piracha and Mian Aslam.

The men criticized the Pakistani leader for making speeches in favor of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League. They also accused Musharraf of rigging local elections.

Baluch asked the commissioner to announce a proper code of conduct for elections. Farooq said he cannot do that and directed the petitioners to take the matter to the country’s highest court.

“We will definitely move the Supreme Court,” Baluch told Arab News. “It is our constitutional responsibility to bring the unconstitutional activities of President Musharraf to the notice of the election commissioner.”

Meanwhile, an Interior Ministry document has warned Musharraf that without “swift and decisive action” the Taleban will soon spread across all of Pakistan.

A New York Times report yesterday quoted the document as saying that Pakistani security forces in North West Frontier Province were outgunned and outnumbered and had forfeited authority to the Taleban and their allies.

“The ongoing spell of active Taleban resistance has brought about serious repercussions for Pakistan,” The Times quotes the 15-page document as saying. “There is a general policy of appeasement toward the Taleban, which has further emboldened them.” The document was discussed by the Pakistani National Security Council in the presence of Musharraf. The United States has poured about $1 billion a year into Pakistan in the last five years for what are described as reimbursements for Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts along the border with Afghanistan. The prime purpose of that financial support has been to stop the area from becoming a haven for the Taleban and Al-Qaeda as they wage their insurgency in Afghanistan.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, the prime mover behind the document, narrowly escaped assassination in April by extremists in his home area of Charsadda, northeast of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan.

The attack on Sherpao shook his confidence in Musharraf’s policy toward the militants, which has included a series of peace deals, The Times said.

In the capital Islamabad, the chief of a mosque yesterday threatened severe retaliation if the government launched an operation against it after Musharraf said it housed suicide bombers. “We have read the statement by Musharraf and we want to warn him that in case of an operation against our mosque and the seminary we will put up a very forceful retaliation,” Abdul Rashid Ghazi, from Islamabad’s Red Mosque and Jamia Hafsa seminary, said.

The Dawn newspaper quoted Musharraf as saying many potential suicide bombers were inside the mosque, which is seen as a militant hub in the heart of the capital.

“Let it be clear that action against Lal Masjid (the Red Mosque) and Jamia Hafsa Brigade was not withheld because of government weakness or cowardice,” Musharraf said in the report.

— Additional input from agencies