WASHINGTON, Jan 25: President Pervez Musharraf has said Al Qaeda "is on the run, they are hiding" on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Pakistan Army "is pursuing them, as well as their Taliban supporters in South Waziristan."

The president said this in an interview on Friday with Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth, excerpts of which were published on Sunday. The President pledged to crack down on extremist groups operating in Pakistan.

Referring to the brains behind assassination attempts against him, the president said: "We don't know that yet." Conceding that Al Qaeda was behind both the attempts, the president added: "There are some Arabs involved - some non-Pakistanis. Al Qaeda comes mostly from the Arab world...We are sure that one person got an instruction from an individual who was a non-Pakistani. We don't have that man. When we get him, he will tell us who ordered him to do it. Maybe it was (Aiman Al) Zawahiri."

The President said: "But these people are not overt, they are not roaming around the street saying, 'I am a member of the Jaish or another jihadi group.' All our law enforcement agencies are hunting extremists down and many arrests have been made. We have to get to their leaders."

President Musharraf reiterated Pakistan's policy regarding the proliferation issue, categorically saying Pakistan's government was not involved in any transfer of nuclear know-how or technology. He also spoke about turning a new page in Pakistan's tense relations with India.

Commenting on the possibility about Aiman Al Zwahiri actually threatening his life, he said: "Didn't he,?...Yes, and the start of the planning (for the assassination) coincided with that."

"I don't believe in taking impulsive decisions. One has to absorb shocks and then take balanced decisions," he said when asked to comment about his calm after the recent attacks on his life.

Commenting on the earlier accusations of the so-called cross-border terrorism in the occupied Kashmir, the president reiterated that Pakistan had always stated that what was happening there was a freedom struggle, "but let us leave that behind. Whenever anyone asks me now, while rapprochement with India is going on, (I say) let's not talk of cross-border terrorism, let's leave that behind and focus on the future."

Commenting on the possibility of his running for president in the elections scheduled for 2007, Gen Musharraf said that he was not a politician. "I don't think it's in me...There is a lot of time."

Responding to another question, Gen Pervez Musharraf said: "This is not a banana republic. Our military is extremely disciplined. Every commander is on board with me...A very low- level person in uniform was possibly involved but no one at an officer level."

He said: "It is not Pakistan. These are individuals and our investigation has concluded that no government of Pakistan - and I don't have a soft spot for the governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif - sanctioned or authorized anyone to proliferate. There are individuals whose names have come up."

"We are investigating whatever our scientists are involved in. When it's a question of knowledge or the know-how to build a centrifuge, it's in the mind of a person or in diagrams that can be carried in a briefcase or in a pocket. If it's in the mind of a person, you can't intercept it," the president said.-Agencies