Pakistan will not tolerate incursions

Pakistan will not tolerate any infringement of its territory in the name of the fight against militants, President Asif Ali Zardari said yesterday. He was speaking after a series of US strikes on militants in areas of Pakistan that have infuriated many Pakistanis.

Zardari, widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, also said in his first address to a joint sitting of parliament that the biggest challenge facing the government is the economy.

Pakistan also needed peace with its neighbours and relations with old rival India should be "creatively reinvented", he said.

Zardari won a presidential election this month to replace firm US ally Pervez Musharraf, who stepped down in August under threat of impeachment.

Zardari is close to the United States and had earlier promised to maintain nuclear-armed Pakistan's commitment to the US-led 'war on terrorism', even though it is deeply unpopular.

The United States and Afghanistan say Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants operate out of sanctuaries in remote ethnic Pashtun lands on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border.

Frustrated by an intensifying Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the United States has stepped up attacks on militants in Pakistan with six missile attacks and a helicopter-borne ground assault this month.

The army has vowed to stand up to aggression across the border. But a senior Pakistani official told Reuters earlier the latest missile strike, which killed five militants last Wednesday, was the result of better US-Pakistani intelligence-sharing.

Zardari did not refer specificlly to the United States but said territorial violations were unacceptable.

"We will not tolerate the violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity by any power in the name of combating terrorism," Zardari told parliament.

At the same time, Pakistan must stop militants from using its territory for attacks on other countries, he said.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and sending insurgents across the border into Indian-controlled Kashmir, where militants have been fighting security forces since 1989.

Pakistan says it offers political support to what it calls a freedom struggle in Indian Kashmir.