ISLAMABAD, 13 April 2007 — President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said yesterday that the West’s mistrust of Pakistan’s commitment to the war on terror was troubling and threatened to pull out of the coalition.

Musharraf said he was “very satisfied with the intelligence cooperation between the US forces (in Afghanistan) and the Pakistan Army” but added that mistrust of Pakistan’s commitment was unjustified.

“If Pakistan, myself, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s military spy agency) and the coalition forces across the border are all bluffing each other then it is better to end the cooperation,” he said.

Reacting to the skepticism about Pakistan’s role in the war on terror, he said: “If Pakistan is not doing enough then no one is doing enough.”

The president also rejected claims by his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai that Mullah Omar was hiding in Pakistan, saying that Omar was based in southern Afghanistan and had “never been to Pakistan.”

Speaking at a symposium on “Common Security and Global War on Terror” here Musharraf said that no partnership can succeed if there is a lack of trust. Pakistan, he said, had arrested the largest number of terror suspects after Sept. 11 and handed them over to the US. It has deployed some 80,000 troops on its border with Afghanistan to fight Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants, Musharraf said.

The president said Pakistani tribesmen had killed about 300 foreign Al-Qaeda militants near the Afghan border and admitted the army had helped the tribal fighters.

“The people of South Waziristan now have risen against the foreigners. They have killed about 300 of them,” Musharraf told the meeting attended by defense officials from 22 countries.

“They have support from the Pakistan Army. They asked for it.” Previously, officials have only said the army had secured parts of the South Waziristan tribal area after the tribesmen drove out the mainly Uzbek and Chechen insurgents themselves, and that the military provided medical aid.

They have also given lower casualty figures than the president, telling reporters on a rare trip to the region on Wednesday that about 200 foreign militants and 40 tribesmen had died.

Musharraf said the ethnic Pashtun tribes, who once gave shelter to the foreigners after the fall of Afghanistan’s Taleban regime in 2001, were also likely to take up arms against rebels in other parts of the region.

“We want a similar activity in North Waziristan and there are indications that this can happen there as well,” he said. Heavy clashes broke out in South Waziristan on March 19, sparked by a Taleban commander-turned-government supporter’s demand that Uzbek militants in the area leave or disarm.

The tribesmen hoisted white flags, pounded war drums and proclaimed victory earlier this week, saying that the foreigners had been driven out of their bunkers, a claim backed by the army.

Musharraf said that efforts by a tribal force of about 1,000 fighters vindicated the government’s policy of signing peace deals with the tribal leaders, despite criticism from Western allies.

NATO and US officials have said that cross-border attacks on their forces had risen since the deals in South Waziristan in 2005 and North Waziristan in 2006 — but Pakistan says such assaults had in fact dropped.

Pakistan to Get Warships

Pakistan Navy will get warships from China in 2009, Sen. Nisar A. Memon, chairman, Senate Committee on Defense, told journalists yesterday.

Three more Type-22p frigates will be inducted into the navy by 2013. The first frigate will be built in China and the others will be built jointly in Pakistan and China, he said.