'Put your house in order first'
PTI[ FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2005 09:12:58 AM ]
WASHINGTON: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that there was "no credible intelligence" tying the London bombers to his country and asked Britain to put its house in order before blaming others.
Seeking to turn the tables on Britain in the wake of Prime Minister Tony Blair's criticism that Pakistan was not doing enough to tackle terrorism, he said there was no need to blame Islamabad as the problem was not there but in England.
"The problem is not in Pakistan but in England. Let that be clear. They (London bombers) belong to an extremist organisation which has not been banned (in Britain). The hatred has been spread in London and nobody has moved against them. So why are they blaming Pakistan," he asked.
There was "no credible intelligence" linking the bombers to Pakistan, despite reports that three of the four had spent time there, he told ABC television in an interview.
Asked whether he knew what the bombers were doing in Pakistan, he said "we don't but we are going to investigate. Of course they came on British passports, and these people belong, unfortunately, to extremist organisations based in London itself."
Lashing out at Britain, he said England had been slow to react to growing extremism within their own borders, including not acting upon a fatwah.
"What did England do about this (the fatwah). Have they banned these organisations? Have they arrested the person who has done that? No, nothing. In the name of human rights, in the name of liberty, human liberty, freedom of speech, this is going on... Please set your own house in order. Everyone has to do something," Musharraf said.