ISLAMABAD, Dec 17: The government has no other option but to rely on air attacks to eliminate ‘high-value targets’ in tribal areas, President Asif Ali Zardari said on Wednesday.

In a meeting with tribal elders at the President House, Mr Zardari said air attacks against terrorists would continue in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) to eliminate terrorists hiding there.

However, tribal elders expressed reservations about the US drone attacks and said innocent people were also being killed.

The president’s statement hinted that the US strikes in tribal areas were being conducted with the government’s consent.

President Zardari called for another round of talks with tribal elders on Thursday to take their suggestions.

The Governor of the NWFP, Owais Ghani, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik and the Minister of States and Frontier Region, Najamuddin Khan, also attended the meeting.

“There is no alternative to fighting militancy because militants want to capture political power through the use of force to impose their own political agenda. This the government would never allow,” he is reported to have said.

The president said the government was committed to strengthen law-enforcement agencies, besides starting a massive socio-economic development programme in tribal areas.

About the banning of Jamaatud Dawa, he said the crackdown would continue.

The government’s stance was backed by two coalition partners — MQM and ANP — in a meeting with the president on Tuesday night. However, the JUI-F urged the president to stop action against JuD.

President Zardari said the need for socio-economic development for fighting militancy was increasingly being recognised by the international community and that adoption of the Lugar-Biden bill in the US Senate was a manifestation of this realisation.

Referring to the regional situation in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, President Zardari said there was no evidence of the involvement of any Pakistani.

He said Pakistan had offered India full cooperation in investigating the attacks and asked for evidence about the involvement of any Pakistani, but India had so far not been forthcoming.

MUKHTAR: Meanwhile, Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said although India had threatened to go to war against Pakistan, the country’s armed forces were capable of thwarting any aggression.

Earlier, the governor of the NWFP gave an overview of the law and order situation in the tribal belt, followed by a discussion among stakeholders.

The meeting was informed that the government had decided to fill vacant posts in development projects in tribal areas.

The prime minister’s adviser on interior informed the meeting that 2,500 levies were being recruited in the first phase to strengthen law enforcement efforts. More than 100 platoons of the Frontier Constabulary would also be raised, he added.