Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, has promised the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, that his government would take "strong action" against anyone operating from its territory who may be implicated in last week's terrorist strikes on Mumbai which claimed more than 180 lives. "The government will not only assist in investigating the attack but also take strong action against any Pakistani elements found involved in it," Zardari said after meeting Rice in Islamabad. Neighbors Pakistan and India have been at war three times since independence in 1947 and fought an 11-week border skirmish in 1999. They came close to war in 2002 after both sides massed their armies along their frontier following the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament that Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based gunmen, as it does the Mumbai attacks.
"Pakistan is determined to ensure that its territory is not used for any act of terrorism," Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto who was killed by terrorists a year ago, told Rice. The US Secretary of State insisted that Washington had told Islamabad to act with resolve, urgency and transparency in apprehending those responsible for the Mumbai attacks. India maintains the Lashkar-i-Taiba ('Army of the Pure'), a militant group based at Muridke near the Pakistani border city of Lahore, had sent the 10 gunmen who went on a shooting spree through Mumbai's crowded streets before besieging two luxury hotels and the Chabad House and holding scores of people hostage. Its claims were based on the interrogation of the only surviving terrorist who was captured after attacking Mumbai's crowded Victoria terminus. India also holds the Lashkar group responsible for the December 2001 strike on its Parliament.
