Musharraf terms strikes plan 'counterproductive'

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WASHINGTON, Aug 6 (Agencies): The United States will do everything it can to capture high-value targets in Pakistan, but it will not act independently of Pakistan's government, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a television channel.
Her comments at the CBS's 'Face The Nation' followed a series of statements by other senior US officials saying that the US would not hesitate to launch direct military strikes at targets inside Pakistan if it had credible information that al Qaeda leaders were hiding there.
Rice, who was speaking before her meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the Camp David presidential resort, emphasised that Pakistan was an ally, not an adversary, in the war against terror.
Rice also noted that the terrorists the US was fighting were also "threatening Pakistan itself."
Meanwhile another reports from Islamabad adds, Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf said Tuesday recent suggestions from the US that it might launch unilateral strikes against al-Qaida in Pakistan were "counterproductive" to the fight against terrorism, the government said.
Musharraf's comments were the highest-level rejection by Pakistan of comments by senior US officials and presidential candidates about the possibility of US strikes within the country, a possibility that Pakistan views as challenging its sovereignty.
US President George W. Bush said Monday that America and Pakistan, if armed with good intelligence, could track and kill al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan, but stopped short of saying whether he would ask the Pakistani president before dispatching US troops there.