Europe to suffer if war on terror fails: Musharraf

London, Jan 26: President Pervez Musharraf has warned the European countries against criticising him, and asked them to be prepared to face the consequences of failure in the war against terrorism in Pakistan. He said such an eventuality would have its impact on the streets of whole of Europe, as the stability of the whole region and even the world depends on this war that must be won at all costs.

Addressing members of a British think tank, Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) on "vision for Pakistan, regional harmony", Musharraf assured Europeans that very soon the main architect of suicide bombings in Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, would be eliminated and the bombings would come to an end.

He also gave firm assurances to hold free, fair and transparent elections on February 18.

Musharraf also reminded the West in general and Americans in particular that after fighting a war in Afghanistan against the former USSR for 10 years, they all "ditched" Pakistan.

Musharraf said Americans and Europeans trained and armed Taliban within Afghanistan to fight against Russians. This was a big military victory that was made possible only with the efforts and collaboration of Pakistan, America and Europe who brought all kinds of Muslim fighters to the region to fight against the communist forces.

He said they failed to convert the military victory into a political one at the end of the Cold War, in which Pakistan and its intelligence agencies had played a major role.

Afghanistan was left to the warlords to settle their own scores without involvement from any side, which culminated in the events of 9/11; The News quoted Musharraf, as saying.

He recounted efforts Pakistan had made to deal with the situation arising out of terrorism following 9/11 incident.

Musharraf said Pakistani law-enforcement agencies had played a major role in bringing the situation under control.

He said number of those fighting against the Pakistan Army had reduced quite considerably as majority of them had already been killed.

Musharraf said his government was also trying to adopt some political strategies to win this war in tribal areas.

He said cities were cleared of al-Qaeda elements after 600 of them were arrested from different cities.

ANI