Pak feared Indian strike post Mumbai attacks: ISI chief

ISLAMABAD: Ruling out a war with India over the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan's powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) chief has said terrorism, not India was the country's prime enemy.

Lt-Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha also said that Pakistan had initially feared an attack from India as a reprisal to the Mumbai attacks.

"We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds. We know full well that terror is our enemy, not India," the ISI-chief told German magazine 'Der Spiegel' in a rare interview.

But he said that as the Mumbai attacks unfolded, Pakistan had prepared for a "military reaction" after the Mumbai tragedy.

"At first we thought there would be a military reaction ... as the Indians, after the attacks, were deeply offended and furious, but they are also clever," Pasha said.

India had recently said Pakistan's state agencies had a hand in the Mumbai terror strikes, which Islamabad is denying.

The ISI, often labelled as a 'state within a state', has also been accused of links with radical groups but its chief claimed that his powerful agency was under the control of the recently elected democratic government.

Pasha told the magazine that "there will be no war". "We are distancing ourselves from conflict with India, both now and in general," he said.

For the first time, the ISI chief in the interview said he was willing to travel to New Delhi after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani accepted a request by his Indian counterpart following the Nov 26 attacks.

But the general, without revealing the reasons for not doing so, remarked: "Many people here are simply not ready".