Former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. - Reuters

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP):

Pakistani President Gen-eral Pervez Musharraf said in his memoir released yesterday that he had no choice but to switch support from the Taliban to the U.S.-led war on terror or face an American "onslaught" and a possible Washington-backed Indian incursion into Kashmir.

Musharraf, in his book entitled In The Line of Fire, also criticised the American invasion of Iraq for making the world "more dangerous" and heaped scorn on the "father" of Pakis-tan's nuclear programme, A.Q. Khan, for selling atomic equip-ment and secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Thousands of copies of the books hit the stands in Pakistan as well as in the United States, Britain and India yesterday. Its release is unique as only few heads of state have published books while still in power.

Created monster

The cover of a book written by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf titled 'In The Line of Fire: A Memoir', after it was released at book stalls, is seen in Islamabad yesterday.- Reuters

Musharraf, who is currently visiting the U.S., acknowledged Pakistan, the United States and Saudi Arabia created their own militant "monster" by supporting the Islamic jihad against the Soviet Union during its 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan.

On September 12, 2001, then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned the Pakistani leader with the ultimatum: "You are either with us or against us," Musharraf recalled.

The next day, Powell's then deputy, Richard Armitage, tele-phoned the chief of Pakistan's top spy agency, the directorate of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), with an even sterner warning.

"In what has to be the most undiplomatic statement ever made, Armitage ... told the (ISI) director general not only that we had to decide whether we were with America or with the terrorists, but that if we chose the terrorists, then we should be prepared to be bombed back to the Stone Age," Musharraf recounted.

Like a 'wounded bear'

Armitage last week denied threatening to bomb Pakistan, but acknowledged delivering a stern warning to the Pakistani govern-ment after the September 11 attacks.

But after those attacks, Musharraf realised that continued support for the Taliban and ties with militant networks would set Pakistan on a collision course with Washington.

"America was sure to react violently, like a wounded bear," Musharraf wrote. "If the perpetra-tor turned out to be al-Qaida, then that wounded bear would come charging straight toward us."

"We had assisted in the rise of the Taliban after the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, which was then callously abandoned by the United States," Musharraf wrote.