The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Islamabad

Pakistan summoned Afghanistan's ambassador to the foreign office to receive a strong protest on Monday after Afghan leader Hamid Karzai threatened cross-border attacks on militants, an official said. Karzai threatened on Sunday to attack Taliban insurgents on the soil of his supposed ally in the US-led "war on terror", saying his war-torn country had a right to do so in self-defence. "The Afghan ambassador has been summoned to the foreign office and a strong protest was lodged over President Karzai's statement," Pakistani foreign office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq told AFP. The spokesman refused to give further details of what was said at the meeting. In his toughest comments yet on stamping out militancy along the frontier, Karzai said Afghanistan "has the right to destroy terrorist nests on the other side of the border in self-defence." He sent a specific warning to Pakistani Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, whom the previous Pakistani government has blamed for the December assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.