BRUSSELS, Sept 12: President Pervez Musharraf has warned that Taliban have overtaken Al Qaeda as the region’s biggest threat to security. The Taliban were more dangerous because they had roots as a social movement and not simply an ideology, the president told the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee here on Tuesday.

“The centre of gravity of terrorism has shifted from Al Qaeda to Taliban,” he said.

“It is a new element that has emerged, a more dangerous element because it has roots in the people. Al Qaeda did not have roots in the people,” he said.

President Musharraf said Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was leading the insurgency in Afghanistan. The president said the Taliban leader was hiding in Afghanistan and not Pakistan, although he acknowledged that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin laden might be in his country.

“Mullah Omar has never visited Pakistan since 1995 ... why would he be in Pakistan? He is certainly in southern Afghanistan,” the president said.

“The battle, if it is to be won, has to address the centre of gravity of the force, and the centre of gravity lies in Mullah Omar and his command echelon,” he said.

“The Talibanisation of Pakistan goes against the Pakistani national ethos. We reject that. We need to make it very clear we have to fight militant Taliban,” he said.

Gen Musharraf said a deal reached last week between militants and tribal leaders in Waziristan was an important step in cutting off recruits to the Taliban.

He said the deal included simultaneous military, political, administrative and reconstruction efforts, instead of the simple use of force alone.

“Military only buys time and provides an opening for a political solution. Military will never give you the ultimate solution. The military is never the ultimate answer,” he said. “I personally feel it is the time for brains rather than brawn,” he said.

He said the remnants of Al Qaeda “are now on the run and we are still attacking them.”

The president blamed the West for breeding terrorism in Pakistan by bringing in thousands of mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and then leaving Islamabad alone a decade later to face the armed warriors.

He said Pakistan was not the intolerant, extremist country often portrayed by the West, and terrorism and extremism were not inherent to Pakistani society.

“Whatever extremism or terrorism is in Pakistan is direct fallout of the 26 years of warfare and militancy around us. It gets back to 1979 when the West, the United States and Pakistan waged a war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan,” he said.

“We launched a Jihad, brought in mujahideen from all over the Muslim world, the US and the West and us together. We armed the Taliban and sent them in, we did it together. In 1989 everyone left Pakistan with 30,000 armed mujahideen who were there, and the Taliban who were there,” he said, adding that Pakistan “paid a big price for being part of the coalition that fought the Soviet Union”.—Agencies