'Pak Jihad poses threat to regional peace'

Military ruler Musharraf, a major US ally in the "war on terror", has also failed to tackle the so-called holy warriors because he needs Pakistan's hardline Muslim parties on-side, they say.

The result is worsening ties with India -- which says Tuesday's Mumbai bombings were carried out with "cross-border" help -- while Afghanistan is urging him to purge Taliban rebels allegedly based on Pakistani soil.

"Musharraf and his government have not totally abandoned the jihadi option," Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group, told AFP.

Pakistan's plethora of extremist outfits were once a principal foreign policy tool, being used to fight the 1979-1989 US-backed war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and later in the divided state of Kashmir.

When Musharraf sided with Washington after the September 11, 2001 attacks, however, he began a widespread campaign against militancy in his own country.

He banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the names in the frame for the Mumbai attacks, and another top Jihadi outfit after militants attacked the Indian parliament in December 2001, nearly plunging the nuclear-armed rivals into war.

Pakistan has since caught or killed dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, many of them along its northwestern border with Afghanistan, while three attempts on Musharraf's life highlighted the risk he was taking.

Even India admitted after launching peace talks with Pakistan in early 2004 that extremist infiltration into Indian-held Kashmir had tailed off.

Yet analysts say his focus has slipped. Prominent Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of the book "Taliban", said Musharraf was distracted by troubles at home.

"Pakistan is entering a very tense domestic political crisis, almost, with the military regime wanting to continue and hold elections again next year, which many people fear could be rigged again by the military," he told the BBC this week.