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OTTAWA, Friday (Reuters) Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the United States was so deeply involved in joint operations with Pakistan to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaeda militants that it had to take some of the blame when missions failed.

Pakistan has deployed thousands of troops along its long porous border with Afghanistan to hunt Taliban militants from Afghanistan's former regime and the al Qaeda network blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

But there is opposition in Pakistan's Pashtun-dominated border regions to the crackdown and some critics allege rogue elements in the Pakistani military spy service - the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) - sympathize with the Taliban.

Musharraf said the border region was so inhospitable that Pakistan needed high-technology intelligence devices to help intercept communications by cell phone and computers.

"Pakistan has no such devices. We are being assisted by intelligence agencies from next door to here, from the United States," said Musharraf, adding that Washington was also supplying unmanned Predator drones for aerial surveillance. "So if anyone is failing, if the ISI which is being maligned as failing, then so are the intelligence agencies on this side because this intelligence operation is being conducted jointly," he said in a speech to the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies.

Pakistan, a key ally in Washington's war on terror, has arrested hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda militants. But al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Omar are still free despite suspicions they are in the border region.

Islamabad also faces growing accusations from officials of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan that it has allowed Taliban guerrillas to regroup in Pakistan and orchestrate attacks on U.S. and Afghan forces. Musharraf insisted Pakistan had done all it could in the battle against terror and stressed the difficulty of operating in the border region, where there are very few roads.

"So therefore you need aerial mobility, helicopters, helicopter gunships. We are being assisted there also. Our capabilities are limited. So if there are shortcomings, (the) shortcomings are in the joint capabilities," he said.

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