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Musharraf defends terrorist groups

Pakistan military ruler Pervez Musharraf has defended terrorist groups for "waging holy war" against India saying "jihad" (holy war) is a tolerant concept.

"There is no question that terrorism and jihad are absolutely different," the New York Times magazine quoted Gen Musharraf as saying.

"You in the west are allergic to the term jihad but jihad is a tolerant concept," he said.

The Harkat-ul-Mujaheed is among the organisations that are waging "violent jihad" against India and is believed to be behind hijack of the an Indian Airlines plane in December last year, the magazine said.

The group keeps training bases in Afghanistan but its leader Fazlur Rahman Khalil has an office in Rawalpindi not far from Gen Musharraf's house and moves freely in Pakistan, it says.

"These people are not terrorists. They are fighting a Jihad," Musharraf said.

The interview is published as a part of an article on relgious schools.

The article says some one million students from eight to 35 years of age are studying in 10,000 or so madrasas and militant Islam is in the core of most of these schools. Some of them are sponsored by Paksitan's relgious parties and some are affiliated with the "mujahhedeen" groups fighting "jihad" in Kashmir.

Musharraf also defended the role of the madrasas. "Very few of these schools are engaged in any kind of militancy. Most of them are humanitarian. They give food and lodging to the poor people," he said.

Asked if he believed in the American assessment that Osama bin Laden is a terrorist, he did not reply directly.

"If at he's involved in planning or conducting bombings or hijackings, he's a terrorist," he said.

Pressed whether he doubted American claim that Bin Laden is a terrorist, Musharraf said, "The Taliban has a stand on the subject. They say they need proof, which has not been given to them. We have asked for the proof from US and we are in the process of getting this. From a legal point of view, I haven't seen the proof."

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