Pakistan says no cross-border attacks

By Kamran Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan is determined to stop militants crossing its border to fight Western troops in Afghanistan and is activating tribal leaders to squeeze out the militants, a government official said on Monday.

Pakistan's new civilian government, led by the party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is pursuing talks with militants to end a wave of violence that has raised concern about prospects for the nuclear-armed U.S. ally.

But that has raised alarm among Pakistan's allies, especially those with troops in Afghanistan, who fear pacts on the Pakistani side of the border only help militants focus efforts on attacks across in Afghanistan.

NATO's force in Afghanistan said this week the peace talks the new Pakistani government had launched had led to an increase in attacks in Afghanistan.

But a top Pakistani government official overseeing security policy on the Afghan border defended the pacts and said Pakistan was committed to Afghanistan's security.

"Pakistan is fully committed to interdicting cross-border movement of terrorists," Owais Ahmed Ghani, governor of the North West Frontier Province, told Reuters in an interview.

"In no way can we allow militant forces to use Pakistani territory as a base to operate in Afghanistan or anywhere."

A re-think was needed in the war against the Taliban, Ghani said.

"This war against these extremists ... has now entered the seventh year and I feel that we need to actively review our strategies," he said.

"What we need to do is to reduce the space available to these negative forces."

JIHAD

Many al Qaeda and Taliban militants fled to Pakistan's border lands, that have never come under the full control of any government, after U.S-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001.

There they were welcomed by the conservative Pashtun tribes who, since the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, had given refuge to Islamist fighters battling foreigners in Afghanistan.

Winning over the tribes was crucial, Ghani said.

The Pakistani government was not talking to the militants but to the Pashtun elders in the border areas in an effort to get them to exert their authority and isolate the militants, he said.