Quit Pakistan or face death

Musharraf warns foreign terrorists

PAKISTAN: Foreign militants hiding in Pakistan should either leave or face annihilation, President Pervez Musharraf said in a strongly worded speech on Thursday marking a national holiday.

Pakistan has captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda members since Musharraf joined a U.S.-led war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

But security forces are still battling remnants of al Qaeda and their sympathisers among tribes on the border with Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden is widely believed to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan along with his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.

"These foreign terrorists are not only spreading terrorism in Pakistan, but in the rest of the world," Musharraf told a rally that also marked the centenary of the formation of the ruling Muslim League party during the British Raj.

"I want to warn them, that they should leave Pakistan. Go away or we will finish them off," Musharraf said in an open air address beside a national monument in the eastern city of Lahore.

Musharraf has survived several al Qaeda-inspired assassination attempts since he sided with Washington, and he spoke from a dais, protected by a transparent, bullet-proof screen.

LAHORE, Friday Reuters