Mumbai blasts put fresh pressure on Musharraf

Musharraf was one of the first world leaders to condemn the "despicable" coordinated blasts in neighbouring India's financial capital on Tuesday night that killed at least 183 people.

Since 2002 the military ruler has led a major crackdown on Islamic extremists -- many of whom once enjoyed the covert support of the Pakistani establishment and intelligence services.

But while his efforts have been praised by the United States, which regards him as a key ally in the "war on terror", Musharraf still faces accusations that many militant outfits in Pakistan are still active.

"Pakistan has been trying seriously to put pressure on militant groups. It has launched crackdowns against them, banned them, put their leaders behind the bars," political analyst Talat Masood told AFP.

"But it has not been able to wipe them out."

Some hardline Pakistani outfits have benefited from their aid-giving role after last year's gigantic Kashmir earthquake, which killed nearly 75,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless.

Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two of the main groups fighting Indian rule in divided Kashmir, "have revived a lot, because they were allowed to help the victims of the Kashmiri earthquake in October last year," Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid said.

"That has given them a new kind of credibility, a new face as a kind of humanitarian organization," he told the British Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday.

Lashkar on Wednesday denied any involvement in the Mumbai blasts following Indian newspaper reports that police were probing its links with an Indian Islamic student movement.

The two groups have been prime targets since Musharraf launched his anti-militant drive in the wake of an attack on the Indian parliament which brought the South Asian rivals to the brink of a fourth war in 2002.

India accuses Pakistan of aiding and abetting a bloody 17-year Islamicinsurgency in its sector of Kashmir, initially using "jihadi" fighters in need of a cause in 1989 after helping Afghanistan repel the Soviet invasion.

Pakistan has denied the charge, while at the same time saying that it has stopped independent extremists infiltrating Indian Kashmir across the heavily-militarised "Line of Control".

It also claims to have captured or killed more than 700 Al-Qaeda operatives, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.