Pak mullahs not to take US warning lightly8217;

WASHINGTON, SEPT 24: A state department warning this week to Pakistan's military not to stage a coup has enraged Islamic militants who ha...

WASHINGTON, SEPT 24: A state department warning this week to Pakistan8217;s military not to stage a coup has enraged Islamic militants who have built a large, armed militia and threaten to turn the long-time US ally into another Afghanistan or Iran, says the Washington Times.

The daily quoting a senior South Asian military source, said the warning inflamed not only Islamic militants but also the secular military as well as the mainstream opposition to the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

With coup rumours sweeping Islamabad this week, the leading Pakistani English language daily, The News, quoted a state department official as saying, 8220;The constitutional rules of the road need to be observed in letter and spirit. We would strongly oppose any attempt to change the government through extra-constitutional means.8221;

In Washington, another state department official confirmed the statement, adding 8220;we hope there will be no return to the days of interrupted democracy inPakistan.8221;

Coming two months after the humiliation of withdrawing militant fighters from Kargil, India-after a failed incursion this spring, the seemingly innocuous statement ignited anti-US sentiment in Pakistan.

Opponents viewed it as a US effort to prop up Sharif, but some in Pakistan view it as a heavy-handed interference that will actually undermine his authority, the daily adds. 8220;I am scared of the mullahs. We cannot fight the mullahs with US statements,8221; it quotes the South Asian military source.

He said he feared that Sharif would react by pushing a law through the parliament to impose 8220;Islamic law8221; on Pakistan. The measure passed in the parliament8217;s lower body and is now stalled in the upper house.

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Imran Khan, the former cricket champion and now a political opposition figure in Pakistan, said last week here that Islamic militants have trained more than 100,000 fighters and that from 10,000 to 17,000 of them are believed to be armed. Prominent among these militant groups is the Lashkar-e-Toiba which is so violent and fanatically determined to create an Islamic state that Khan and the South Asian source said they and others were fearful of publicly criticising the group.

The fighters of Lashkar-e-Toiba and other groups were trained to fight the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and then the Indians in Kashmir after the Russians withdrew, the daily says.

8220;They are a serious and active militant group,8221; said the state department official. 8220;They have links to political islamist groups and to the Afghan Taliban.8221;