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Amid international concern, the two nuclear-armed neighbours are lurching towards war, Pakistan said yesterday it would not allow the part of disputed Kashmir it rules to be used for terrorist activity, an apparent concession to rival India to ease their military standoff.

Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf said yesterday that elements inimical to his government were also responsible for attacking India while clearly spelling out that he would not start a war with India.

Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba yesterday condemned its banning by President Pervez Musharraf and vowed to continue their jihad (holy war) in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

As the full impact of the ghastly killing of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl was yet to unfold, the Pakistan government received praise from the U.S. administration for cooperating fully in the investigations into his kidnapping, State Department spokes-man Richard Boucher acknowledged in Washington.

Pakistan has taken several stringent measures over the past week to stop any sneak infiltration by militants into Indian Kashmir, security sources told Gulf News yesterday.

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban claimed yesterday that Osama bin Laden had disappeared and that they were trying to trace the Saudi-born millionaire to deliver last week's edict by Islamic clerics urging the militia to persuade their "guest" to leave Afghanistan of his own free will.

In a move to restrain the street demonstrations, the authorities clamped restrictions on the movements of top leaders of three pro-Taliban extremist religious parties.

Afghan Taliban Ambassador in Islamabad, Mulla Abdul Salam Zaeef claimed yesterday that only civilians were killed in two days of attacks by U.S. and British warplanes and missiles on the cities of Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif on Sunday and Monday.

In a move to restrain the street demonstrations, the authorities clamped restrictions on the movements of top leaders of three pro-Taliban extremist religious parties.

Pakistan has concluded that the evidence given to it by the United States against alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida network "certainly provides sufficient basis for indictment in a court of law," Foreign Office spokesman Riaz Moham-mad Khan said yesterday.

The hijack drama in India was a "diabolical plot" aimed to harm Pakistan which foiled it by taking prompt measures, Pakistani officials said yesterday as they heaped ridicule on rival India where commandos stormed an airliner after what turned out to be a false alarm that the plane had been hijacked.

Executed anti-Taliban commander Abdul Haq agreed to return after U.S. and Pakistan approached him to undertake a mission to lure important Pashtuns to rebel against the Taliban and join the political process to form a broad-based government under former king Zahir Shah to replace the Taliban, sources said yesterday.