Mr Gilani, whose new Government has been facing intense US pressure to crack down on Pakistan-based militants, said after his White House meeting with Mr Bush that Pakistan was committed to fighting extremists.

”We are committed to fight against those extremists and terrorists who are destroying and making the world not safe. This is a war which is against Pakistan, and we’ll fight for our own cause.”

Mr Gilani said the US needed to be more patient and should not take unilateral actions against militants in Pakistan.

Asked about a suspected US missile strike on an al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan yesterday, Mr Gilani said he had told the US leader that ”unilaterally it should not be done”.

The Pakistani leader declined to accuse the US directly of being behind the missile attack, which security officials in Pakistan said had targeted al-Qaeda’s top expert on chemical and biological weapons, Egyptian militant Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar.

But he said if it was proved to have been a US operation it would be a violation of Pakistani sovereignty.

”Basically, Americans are a little impatient. Therefore in the future I think we’ll have more cooperation on the intelligence side and we’ll do the job ourselves,” he said.

Mr Bush said Mr Gilani had given him a strong commitment to try ”as best as possible” to prevent Taliban and al-Qaeda militants crossing from their territory into Afghanistan, where they attack US and NATO troops.

”We talked about the common threat we face, extremists who are very dangerous people,” Mr Bush said.

”We also appreciate the Prime Minister’s strong words against the extremists and terrorists who not only would do us harm, but have harmed people inside Pakistan.”

Mr Bush called Pakistan a strong ally and said the US ‘’supports the sovereignty of Pakistan”.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, ”It’s tense in that we’re working together” to fight terrorism.

”But I think that we are much more on the same page than some people would like to paint.”

Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, had a $US5 million ($A5.22million) bounty on his head and allegedly ran terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. He is described by the website of the US Government’s Rewards for Justice program as an ”explosives expert and poisons trainer working on behalf of al-Qaeda”.

The missile strike came amid mounting speculation that the US was prepared to launch military raids into Pakistan’s troubled tribal belt in pursuit of extremists.

A joint statement issued after their talks said that Mr Bush and Mr Gilani acknowledged terrorism and violent extremism posed a common threat to Pakistan, the United States and the international community.

”The two leaders pledged to work together to address this threat and to deny any space to militants or terrorists through increased co-operation.”

Pakistani Taliban militants kidnapped 30 security forces from a police station in the north-western Swat Valley yesterday, a day after killing three intelligence men, officials said.

The troops and policemen were abducted after Islamist rebels stormed a checkpoint in Swat, a former tourist region where a two-month-old peace deal between militants and the Government is under threat.

A security official said, ”Taliban attacked a police station in the Kabal area of Swat and kidnapped 11 police and 19 Frontier Corps troops on Tuesday morning.”

A spokesman for the militants in Swat, Haji Muslim Khan, confirmed that the Taliban had abducted the officials.

”Our men stormed the police station and asked the officials to surrender,” he said, adding the officials were taken to an undisclosed location. Security forces launched a search operation to recover the officials.

source: The Canberra Times