Pakistani president Asif Zardari admits creating terrorist groups

Pakistan's president has admitted his country created terrorist groups to help achieve its foreign policy goals. Asif Zardari told a meeting of former senior civil servants in Islamabad, it was time to be honest about their deployment."Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities," he said."The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well."

These groups were not thrown up because of government weakness, but as a matter of policy. He said they were deliberately" created and nurtured" as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.

His comments amount to an admission that Pakistan trained Islamic terrorists to launch attacks on India as part of its long war over its claim on Kashmir. It came as at least 40 people were killed in a suspected US missile strike in north-west Pakistan.