An influential Islamic leader and chief of Pakistan's main religious party today warned President Pervez Musharraf and the United States of "grave consequences" if Afghanistan was attacked.
Fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami leader Mr Qazi Hussain Ahmed told an emergency gathering of some 30 religious and secular parties in the eastern city of Lahore that an attack on Afghanistan would be disastrous.
"We advise Pakistani rulers and the United States to keep away from a path that had in the past led to the defeat and destruction of the Soviet Union," he said in a speech.
"Arrogance and power games will bring nothing but destruction."
He warned the Pakistani military government of "grave consequences if it allows the use of its territory in any way by the United States to launch attacks on Afghanistan."
The statement was the strongest sign yet that Mr Musharraf will face potentially violent opposition from domestic Islamist groups which have close ties to the ruling Taliban militia in Afghanistan.
Mr Musharraf has promised Pakistan's full cooperation with Washington in hunting down bin Laden and ending the alleged terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan, even though the Taliban are a close ally and enjoy significant support among a powerful minority of the Pakistani population.
AFP