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Advertisement | Musharraf: In the Line of FirePakistan's President Tells Steve Kroft U.S. Threatened His CountryNEW YORK, Sept. 24, 2006 ![]() ![]() Pervez MusharrafIn an exclusive interview with "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf claimed that the U.S. threatened him into supporting the war on terror. | Share/Embed (CBS) President Musharraf has been praised by both the United States and Britain for rounding up more than 600 Al Qaeda members, including some of its top leadership. But there is also frustration and disappointment. Some of the suicide bombers who blew up the London subways a year ago July, had connections to Pakistan and traveled there shortly before the attacks, and so did some of those accused of planning the foiled attack on ten commercial airliners this past summer. "Seven of the accused people involved in that plot are Pakistani. Does that bother you or surprise you?" Kroft asks. "It disappoints me, yes. But at the same time, it annoys us also. They are not Pakistanis. They are born and bred in Britain, and they are British," Musharraf points out. But seven of them had dual citizenship. "Well, yes, dual citizenship. That is what really disappoints me as I said. I do get disappointed that they have linkages with Pakistan and also some of them may have traveled here, yes. That is disappointing," the president acknowledges. "I mean the British terrorists seem to feel it necessary to come to Pakistan and talk to somebody," Kroft points out. "To get their blessing." "Yes. This is because of whatever has happened for 26 years. So this place becomes a boiling pot," Musharraf says. He is talking about the mujahadeen, the Islamic warriors that Pakistan and the United States and Saudi Arabia recruited, armed, and sent off to Afghanistan in 1979 to drive off the Russian infidels. Musharraf says they and their children are still in cities like Peshawar and in the no man’s land along the Afghanistan border, a Frankenstein monster that now goes by the name al Qaeda and the Taliban. Recruiting tapes, which show young men being trained to make IEDs, are being edited and sold in Pakistan. One man is believed to have passed on explosives training to some of the London subway bombers. The skills and tactics once used against the Soviets are now being employed in Afghanistan against American and NATO convoys. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai believes Musharraf is complicit. "President Karzai has complained for a long time that the Taliban has been getting help from inside Pakistan," Kroft asks. "Is that going to end?" "Yes indeed people could be coming here. People could be training and going back on their own. And we will act against them. We are trying to do our best," the president pledges. After years of Pakistan support for the Taliban, open and covert, Musharraf now says its radical brand of Islamic fundamentalism represents a greater threat than a weakened al Qaeda. "It's a totally shifted environment," Musharraf says. He believes the Taliban must be defeated. It’s not a popular position with most Pakistanis. But then Musharraf knows his future is not likely to be decided by popular opinion. His immediate predecessors have been exiled, imprisoned or died under mysterious circumstances, which is a very strong motivation to survive. President's Musharraf's upcoming book is published by Simon & Schuster, which is part of CBS Corp. Produced by Leslie Cockburn | Advertisement A Matter of RaceCould Attitudes On Skin Color, Not Issues Still Decide The Presidential Contest? Experts Debate What Voters May Truly Feel |
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