ISLAMABAD, 19 July 2007 — Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf yesterday ruled out imposing a state of emergency in the country as dozens more were killed in a fresh wave of violence.
Musharraf’s statement came as 34 people died in gunbattles in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, a day after a suicide blast at an anti-government rally in Islamabad killed 17. In the latest violence, 17 soldiers and as many militants were killed in two ambushes in North Waziristan.
“We are in direct confrontation with extremist forces. It is moderates versus extremists,” Musharraf was quoted as saying at a meeting with senior editors at his camp office.
Musharraf vowed to attack those responsible for the upsurge in violence since government troops raided Islamabad’s Red Mosque last week.
“We have to attack the source where suicide bombers are sprouting. We have a fair idea of who is behind that...we must attack those who sponsor them,” he said.
However, Musharraf pledged that “there will be no emergency” despite the bloodshed, and added that the violence would not derail elections to be held early next year at the latest.
Musharraf said he will go for election “in uniform from the current assemblies.”
At the same time as militants are believed to be taking revenge for the bloodbath in the capital, pro-Taleban fighters have abandoned a 10-month-old peace pact in North Waziristan, a tribal region regarded as a safe haven for Al-Qaeda. The surge in violence on the Pakistani side of the border comes as Britain’s Parliament said there were worrying signs the Taleban were growing stronger in Afghanistan.
The 17 soldiers were killed in an ambush while on patrol in the Datta Khel area, 40 km (25 miles) west of the region’s main town, Miranshah. Around a dozen militants were killed in fighting that followed, a military official said.
Separately, five militants were killed when they tried to ambush a convoy east of Miranshah, he said.
A US intelligence report warned on Tuesday that Al-Qaeda has regrouped in its Pakistani “safe haven” in the tribal belt and is determined to inflict mass casualties through new attacks on the United States. But Pakistan Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said the US report contained “some unsubstantiated assertions.”
“We would firmly act to eliminate any Al-Qaeda hide-out on the basis of specific intelligence or information,” she added.
Musharraf said a force of 30,000 security personnel — half police and half paramilitary soldiers — would be drawn up by the end of the year to confront extremists in the tribal region.
— With input from agencies
