Lieutenant-General Dan McNeill, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan in charge of the campaign against Al-Qaeda, said that more of the extremists may now be operating in Pakistan than in the original theatre of war. He conceded that his task was now more complicated as the coalition does not have the right to conduct combat missions in Pakistan.

McNeill said that while President Pervez Musharraf's government had been one of the staunchest supporters of the US-led 'war against terrorism', sympathy for Al-Qaeda remained strong in tribal areas of Pakistan. He was reluctant to put a figure on the number of Al-Qaeda fighters still at large, but suggested that in Afghanistan they could number in the hundreds, while just beyond the border there might be as many as a thousand. Hundreds of Al-Qaeda fighters are thought to have crossed into Pakistan from Paktia after Operation Anaconda in March. Pakistan has since conducted its own operations against Al-Qaeda. US agents participated in some of the missions.

Pakistan is to close hundreds of illegal weapons outlets in an attempt to change the nation's "Kalashnikov culture" and reduce gun-related killings, which claim thousands of lives each year, officials said yesterday.

Authorities in Northwest Frontier Province, a lawless tribal area which borders Afghanistan and is infamous for violent clashes between rival clans, said that weapons markets there would be closed following instructions from Islamabad. The administration of Jamrud Khyber district (close to the Khyber pass into Afghanistan) has already closed one weapons market of 200 shops, and yesterday the administration ordered the closure of another market with 150 shops there.

Pakistan Human Rights Commission chairman Afrasiab Khattak said, however, that the problem had spread from the tribal areas throughout the country and Pakistan was now "awash" with weapons used in thousands of killings each year. "Now we have a national 'Kalashnikov culture' with easy access to all manner of sophisticated weapons," he added. "We don't have precise figures, particularly for remote areas, but it is certain that thousands of people are killed each year when guns are used in crimes and personal disputes."