Foreign minister unveils country's anti-terrorism plans

Princeton, New Jersey: Pakistan's top diplomat outlined a strategy for battling terrorism on Wednesday that emphasises going-it-alone militarily within Pakistani borders and talking with opponents if they lay down their arms.

The government's new "roadmap" also includes a media campaign to explain the importance to Pakistan's people of winning the war against extremists in tribal areas around neighbouring Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi said.

Pakistan's fight against the Taliban and Al Qaida militants comes years after Pakistani intelligence helped create the Taliban militia.

Pakistan also was one of the few countries that gave diplomatic recognition to the Taliban's fundamentalist rule in Afghanistan.

Imposing way of life

"We are willing to take on the Taliban because we feel the Taliban are imposing a way of life on Pakistan that is not acceptable," Qureshi told 250 people during an hour-long speech at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

"We've agreed on a roadmap for the next few months," he said

He stressed that Pakistan will now "engage politically with the moderates, those who are willing to give up arms" and will "concentrate on the social, economic development" of the tribal belt.

"We will also use calibrated force. This is the new strategy that we have adopted," he said.

Impatience

Washington has signalled its impatience with Pakistani efforts to eliminate militants implicated in attacks in Afghanistan, carrying out a series of suspected US missile attacks as well as at least one cross-border ground assault in Pakistan's volatile northwest.

US and Pakistani forces recently traded fire in one skirmish.

Militants in the border region are blamed for the September 20 truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed more than 50 people.

A suspected US missile strike on a Taliban commander's home in Pakistan this week killed six people, officials said Wednesday, a possible indication that Washington is moving ahead with cross-border raids despite protests from the new government.

"It hurts us even more when the transgressor is our friend and ally, the US," Qureshi said. "If there are actions to be taken, the actions will be taken by Pakistan. ... I can understand the US frustration. Things are going badly in Afghanistan."

Pakistani lives lost

Qureshi, who serves in the month-old government of President Asif Ali Zardari, emphasised that the fight against terrorism has also cost Pakistan many lives.

"Pakistan is a victim of terrorism," he said.

"I must therefore confess to a degree of bewilderment that Pakistan is seen more as a problem in some US circles than as a partner in this defining struggle of our times."

But he said that recent US action inside Pakistan threatens the gains made in the anti-terror fight.

US cross-border raids

The suspected US missile strike on a Taliban commander's home reported by officials Wednesday is a possible indication that Washington was moving ahead with cross-border raids despite protests from the new government.

The attack was the first since President Asif Ali Zardari warned that its territory cannot "be violated by our friends". American forces recently ramped up cross-border operations against Taliban and Al Qaida militants in Pakistan's border zone with Afghanistan - a region considered a likely hiding place for Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden.

Late Tuesday, missiles fired by a US drone aircraft struck the Taliban commander's home near Mir Ali, a town in North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan, said two Pakistani intelligence officials, who asked for anonymity. Citing reports from their field agents, the officials said Wednesday that six people died, but did not identify any of the victims.