PAKISTAN: Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan is detained in Lahore and police fire tear gas at Benazir Bhutto's supporters in Karachi as President Pervez Musharraf says he has considered resigning

Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan is detained in Lahore and police fire tear gas at Benazir Bhutto's supporters in Karachi as President Pervez Musharraf says he has considered resigning. Pakistani opposition parties tried to forge a united front on Wednesday (November 14) to end the rule of Pervez Musharraf as the military president insisted a state of emergency he imposed this month was necessary for fair elections. Pakistani police detained cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, shortly after he left a university campus where religious students had briefly held him during a rally, police said. Khan, who heads a small opposition party, went into hiding soon after military ruler Musharraf declared a state of emergency on November 3 and rounded up thousands of opposition politicians, activists, lawyers and rights workers. He had been greeted by scores of students shouting "Go Musharraf go" when he appeared on the campus of Punjab University in the city of Lahore earlier. About an hour later he was seen being bundled into a white van and driven off the campus, a witness said. The president told British broadcaster Sky News he considered the option of resigning. "We, we have to see if there is a way that my going will ensure balance and stability in Pakistan. That is the best time that I would like to quit. OK? And I'm seeing that, I'm looking at that. Now if my requirement is there to ensure that turmoil is avoided and we go into elections and an elected government comes in that is the best way of handling it. The best way of handling it, the issue is of transition to democracy which is my uniform issue, OK? That must be handled. The second issue is we must have elections and an elected government, because the elected, I have already declared that, so we must have elections, I must handle the uniform issue. I cannot be a president without ... in uniform now. The choice after that is whether I should stay at all, that option is available to me," Musharraf said. Sky, the last foreign news channel available on cable in Pakistan, went off the air shortly after broadcasting the interview. Musharraf also told Sky he felt let down by the West and betrayed by the media saying "we may lose the battle on terror because of misreporting". Journalists in the Pakistani capital Islamabad continued their peaceful protests against recent curbs that ban any coverage 'that defames, and brings into ridicule or disrepute the head of state' on pain of up to three years' jail. Security measures were intensified on roads leading to the area where Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has been put under house arrest for one week. Bhutto hopes to forge an alliance with Islamists and other opposition parties to launch a campaign to force Musharraf from power. Police had stifled a procession by Bhutto on Tuesday (November 13), placing her under house arrest and bundling off clusters of supporters who gathered to chant slogans. In Pakistan's southern city of Karachi police fired tear gas at Bhutto's supporters. Protesters, mostly young men, hurled stones at police after attacking a petrol station in the southern part of the city. Police fired tear gas to end the protests and arrested several youths. While Musharraf cited rising militancy and "interference" by the judiciary as the reasons for opting for emergency rule and suspending the constitution, his October re-election still awaited approval by a hostile Supreme Court -- which he has now replaced. Musharraf came to power in a bloodless 1999 coup, and his current term as President was due to end on Nov. 15. The Supreme Court was still deciding whether he was eligible to run for reelection in October while still serving as army chief.

ITN Source | November 14, 2007

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