Mr. Mohammd Sadiq, Charge d'Affaires a.i.'s Interview with FOX News

Fox News: 8/15-04- APP Washington:

"At Large with Geraldo Rivera"

Pakistan has continued month long crack down. In the past several days, authorities there have busted a dozen more foreign and local al-Qaeda suspects. There has been operation in Waziristan. The terrorists have been posing threat to President Musharraf's life. Tonight we will tell you about the secret terrorist summit. Discovery of summit by al-Qaeda, second standing leaders of al-Qaeda attend. Officials feel the meeting was a pivotal planning session. Some summit attendees have been arrested to date. Orther summit suspects still at large. A U.S. homegrown terrorist is at large.

There was another fierce fight between Pakistan army with tribesmen the lawless tribesmen from the lawless areas along the Afghan border yesterday. The have been fighting since March, when the first major Pakistani military operation was launched in the violent province of Waziristan. That coincided with 'Operation Mountain Shadow' - a major U.S.-led operation on the other side of the border line. At that time, experts speculated that Pakistan was only acting under pressure from the United States to finally do something about the terrorists thought to be hiding in the rugged region.

Since then, Pakistan has more than proven itself a firm ally in the fight against terrorists- busting scores of them. And, otherwise demonstrating that they are willing to take bold action against al-Qaeda. When the tribesmen put up a surprisedly dogged fight back in March, Pakistani authorities speculated that they were doing it to protect high ranking terrorists in their midst. And, now U.S. and Pakistani authorities have proved that there was, indeed, terrorists' summit in that border region in March, 2004- as TIME magazine reports in its current issue. The fear is that the meeting was a planning session for a terrorist strike in this country, and that some of the summit participants have been busted. Others are still at large and considered very dangerous.

Joining now for a more exclusive information are:

Elaine Shannon, TIME magazine's special correspondent.

Geraldo: Do you really think this happened, this is not just mish-mash talk. We really have physical proof or you talked to reliable sources who had that kind of proof that there really was a terrorist summit, whose some of the participants are still at large and very dangerous.

Elaine: That's right. President Musharraf told my colleague about it. He is quite positive, and he has his own intelligence.The U.S. has intelligence too. There is an eye witness man who was there. Who is now cooperating with FBI in the witness protection program. He was arrested right after he came back to New York from this meeting. He talked to police, and he is now talking about it.

Geraldo: Can we assume, therefore, that whatever they were attempting to hatch has been thwarted. Is there optimism.

Elaine: It's probably thwarted for now. But, everybody knows that al-Qaeda people were very persistent. They have many different timelines many different plots running on parallel tracks. so that if one group of one plot is taken down there, others are in works.

To discuss the secret summit and progress on the war on the radicals is Pakistani Charge d'Affaires, Mohammad Sadiq.

Geraldo: Mr. Charge d' affaires: Pakistan seems to be on an incredible role, how are you attaining such incredible success?.

Sadiq: Basically, three very important things happened in recent months:

- We have almost 100,000 troops on the western border now -
on border with Afghanistan. It is a territory where troops were never stationed in history. Since, soldiers are there and they are actively pursuing the terrorists, the terrorists from that area have dispersed to other places. They are on the run.

- Better intelligence, which is available to us now. In our past operation, we learnt several things. New techniques as well as better human intelligence are helping us.

- We are better equipped today. Technically, we have a much superior capability now than, let us say, a few months ago. These three things contributed to our success.

Geraldo: Congratulations. It really has been extremely impressive.

Hussain Haqqani:

Q-What is your comment on the scores of arrests they made since July?.

Haqqani: Pakistan always invites the metaphor of proverbial half empty half full glass. Yet, there are achievements, and one should give credit where credit is due. At the same time the fact
remains that two years after 9/11, al-Qaeda still thinks that Pakistan is a place where it should have a terrorist summit; and, we found out about the summit six or seven months after it
actually took place.

So, while achievements have been made, there is a long way to go.

Geraldo: Well, Mr. Charge d'affaires, commenting on Ambassador
Haqqani’s statement is the glass in your view more than half full?.

Sadiq: First, I will comment on the story of Time magazine. There was a meeting in March and this is the information provided by Pakistan to the TIME magazine. Actually, President Musharraf spoke about it. But, calling it a summit is not right. As far as we know, there were two foreigners who visited that area and met some people there. But, calling it a summit, is a bit too much, I think. It’s just sensationalizing the whole thing

Secondly, yes, I totally agree a lot needs to be done and we are doing a lot more. Terrorism is a huge problem, it will need a lot of effort to eliminate. We never said, it will be easy. We know that it is very difficult, and we are determined to do it. And, hopefully, with the support of our friends, we will be able to root it out.

Geraldo: Col. David Hunt (Fox News Commentator): Isn’t Pakistan the key to all this war to this whole war, because whatever reason as ambassador Haqqani suggests they still think, Pakistan is a place to hang out. Are they the case President Musharraf may be the most important man on the side of President Bush in the whole war?.

Hunt: There’s no question on that part of world, we could not get to deal with al-Qaeda or really make a dent we need to – without Pakistan’s help.

What the two things have happened since the past two months: retired special forces have been hired to go to Pakistan and help the military on that part. It’s CIA program, that news broken a week ago.

Secondly, what’s still happening now is we are not being allowed to come across the border from Afghanistan and help more aggressively.

We need more NATO and U.S. and Coalition/NATO forces to go across the border, where you were Geraldo 8 months ago, often that’s mountainous area. Let our guys go back and forth. That’s the only thing, I think, we are missing. It is better with Pakistan, they have done their job –which we congratulate it, but, much more needs to be done. You right, they’re the key.