The US Government Created Islamic Extremism
Pakistan's president says the US and its Western allies promoted extremism as a tool to counter the influence of the Soviet Union in the region.
According to Zaradi, "The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower."
The strategy, he said, worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.
Zardari said in the article that the terrorists who killed his wife are "connected by ideology to these enemies of civilization."
"Pakistan is shocked at the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. We can identify with India's pain. I feel this pain every time I look into the eyes of my children," he wrote, referring to the assassination of her wife Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.
"Not only are the terrorists not linked to the government of Pakistan in any way, but we are their targets and we continue to be their victims," the President insisted.
Zardari emphasized that the Mumbai terror attacks were directed not only against India but also against Pakistan's new democratic government and the peace process "we have initiated with New Delhi".
The remarks also come after the US and Indian intelligence reports suggested the Mumbai terror attacks were carried out by Pakistan-based militants.
He reiterated that India and Pakistan and the rest of the world must work together to track down the terrorists who caused mayhem in Mumbai, attacked New York, London and Madrid in the past, and destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September.
Earlier in an interview Zardari had warned of militants' capability to destabilize the whole region. More than 2,000 people were killed in Pakistan in 2007 in terrorist attacks that the government blames on militants opposed to its support of Bush administration's 'war on terror' doctrine.