'Pak forces have broken the back of al-Qaeda'

Even as police investigate possible Pakistani links to both attacks, Musharraf said his country had broken the back of al-Qaeda and captured more than 700 militants loyal to Osama bin Laden.

"It has no command structure originating from Pakistan and conveying messages to the whole world to do this act and do that act under total coordination of some commander," he said.

"Is it possible that an al-Qaeda man sitting here is controlling events in London or Sharm el-Sheikh or other parts of the world?" he told journalists in the eastern city of Lahore late Tuesday. "This is absolutely wrong."

Musharraf has been under pressure to step up the fight against extremists after it emerged that three of the four suspected July 7 London bombers were Britons of Pakistani origin who had recently visited the country.

Egyptian police on Monday said they were searching for six Pakistani suspects in connection with Saturday's attacks in Sharm el-Sheikh that killed at least 88 people.

In the manhunt, police exchanged fire with Bedouin gunmen who were believed to be hiding the suspects in the mountainous inland areas of Egypt's Sinai peninsula.

"Two Pakistanis had been staying there, and it is suspected that the bombs were assembled in this area," an Egyptian intelligence source said.

Musharraf said suggestions that al-Qaeda was headquartered in Pakistan were "absolutely and totally baseless" and that his government had smashed the group's structure.

But Egypt has told Pakistan that no Pakistani was involved in the weekend's deadly Red Sea resort bombings, Cairo's embassy in Islamabad said yesterday.

Ambassador Hussein Haridy had "informed the Pakistani government late last night that no Pakistani national was involved in the terrorist acts that rocked Sharm el-Sheikh last Saturday," an embassy statement said.