Musharraf reiterates support for anti-terrorism coalition

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf reiterated his support Sunday for an international anti-terrorism effort and said Islamic radicals must be held in check in his nation and elsewhere.

Musharraf also said his country's relations with India were "at their lowest ebb" as the two nuclear rivals continued to trade artillery fire over the contested province of Kashmir.

Speaking at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Musharraf said the world needs a better understanding of Islam and the roots of terrorism, saying hate "must be stamped out with the same zeal with which the fights against terrorism is being pursued."

"We must diagnose the malaise and treat the root causes of terrorism. What is it that conjures up such storms in the mind? What motivates a suicide bomber that his instinct for survival is overcome by a death wish?"

Musharraf is in the United States for the start of the annual debate at the United Nations' General Assembly, at which the United States is expected to make its case for a military action against Iraq.

Musharraf was shunned by the United States and its Western allies after he seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999. But he evolved into a key American ally in the war against al-Qaida and the Taliban after Sept. 11, when he abandoned support for the Afghan Islamic movement and threw his support to the United States.

Pakistan allowed the United States to use bases in Pakistan to support the military effort against the Taliban and al-Qaida, shared intelligence with the Americans, and cracked down on militants within his borders.

However, Musharraf has said he was not interested in playing a similar role in any future U.S. military operation against Iraq.

Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan won him praise in the West but enraged Pakistan's hardline Islamic movement, which maintained close ties to the Taliban.

"I remain determined not to allow a fringe element to hold the entire nation hostage and hijack our agenda of reforms," he said, noting that Islam as a whole should be understood as a religion of peace and tolerance.

A major rally of 5,000 members of conservative Islamic parties Sunday denounced the United States and Musharraf, saying upcoming elections are a sham and calling for removing Musharraf.

Militants from Pakistan are also at the core of a military standoff with India. The nuclear rivals have a million troops along their shared border after a series of terror attacks in India, which blames the conflict on Islamic militants harbored by Pakistan. Islamabad denied the charge and said it can't control every extremist group.

Just Sunday, Indian and Pakistani border troops traded artillery fire in Kashmir, killing a civilian and a soldier. Indian officials called the shelling the most intense in weeks, while Pakistani officials called it "routine."

Speaking at Harvard, Musharraf said that Indo-Pakistani relations are now "at their lowest ebb" and accused India of "intransigence."

India's and Pakistan's "forces confront each other eyeball to eyeball with most dangerous possibilities of the eruption of conflict by accident or design," he said.