PAKISTAN:PAKISTAN'S BELEAGUERED president, Pervez Musharraf, faced a direct challenge from al-Qaeda yesterday, after the terrorist group lambasted his record in a video.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's deputy leader, whose voice apparently featured on the tape, spoke in English and called for an uprising against Mr Musharraf and the Pakistan state, which he said was "virtually ruled from the American embassy".
The video came as Pakistan's parliament convened yesterday for the start of a special session on impeachment proceedings against Mr Musharraf. The government has not yet released its "charge sheet" against the president but al-Qaeda spelt out its anger in the video.
"Pervez has insulted and compromised Pakistan's sovereignty by allowing the CIA and FBI to operate freely in Pakistan and arrest, interrogate, torture, deport and detain any person, whether Pakistani or not, for as long as they like, thus turning the Pakistani army and security agencies into hunting dogs in the contemporary crusade," said al-Zawahiri.
He denounced Mr Musharraf for the crackdown he ordered on Islamabad's radical Red Mosque - an army raid last year resulted in about 100 deaths - and his treatment of the renegade Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr AQ Khan, who has been under house arrest for four years.
The vitriol against Mr Musharraf from extremists demonstrated how dangerous it would be for him to remain in Pakistan after leaving office, where he has heavy security. The authenticity of the recording, delivered to a Pakistani news channel over the weekend, could not be verified.
Al-Zawahiri said he was speaking in English to directly appeal to the people of Pakistan.
There were suggestions in the Pakistani media that the video had been "cooked up" by Mr Musharraf's aides to boost public opinion in his favour, just as an al-Qaeda video on the eve of the last US presidential election appeared to help George Bush's political standing.
Al-Qaeda's message was much broader than an attack on Mr Musharraf, with the group calling for a jihad against the Pakistani state, including the government and military. The army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, was singled out as a "hostile enemy of Islam".
Mr Musharraf shows no signs of resigning, as many predicted after the coalition announced last week that it would try to impeach him. Parliament would need a two-thirds majority to convict him.
The impeachment process could take three weeks. The charges are expected to be based on Mr Musharraf's alleged subversion of the constitution.
- (Guardian service)