asif-ali-zardariISLAMABAD - In the first candid admission of its kind by any Pakistani ruler, President Asif Ali Zardari has conceded that terrorist elements were created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives by Islamabad.

The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryear until 9/11 (terrorist attack on America) brought things into a new light, Zardari said in what he called a candid admission of the realities in an interactive meeting with former bureaucrats Tuesday night at the presidency.

Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities… Militancy and extremism emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives, he said.

We intend to keep all the political forces together in a harmonious relationship as we cannot afford political games and confrontational politics. We are at the brink and we must realise that political games for personal gain can no longer be played, the Daily Times quoted him as saying.

India has long been accusing Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir by providing arms and ammunition training and funds to guerrillas who have been fighting a two-decade old separatist war in Kashmir.

The Pakistan Army is currently engaged in a war with Taliban militants in the northwestern Swat valley of the country.

Earlier, Zardari while shifting focus from seeing India as the foremost threat to the country towards the domestic danger posed by extremist groups had said: I dont think anybody in the establishment supports them (militants) any more … I think everybody has become more wise than this.

Military operations are all across the board against any insurgent whether in Karachi, Lahore or … in any part of Pakistan, he said in an interview to The Daily Telegraph.