Western allies in Iraq and Afghanistan are now giving more weight to reconstruction and wider political issues alongside military force to fight their war on terrorism "properly," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday.
Blair met Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in Lahore to discuss how to beat the Afghan Taliban, pool counter-terrorist intelligence and quell militancy in Pakistani religious schools. He announced a doubling of British aid, some of it to boost Pakistan's moderate Muslim schools to counter Islamic extremism.
"We begin to win when we start fighting properly, and I think we are now fighting properly," Blair told a news conference. "But we've got to do more."
Asked to clarify Blair's remarks, his spokesman added later: "This is all about learning as we go in the war against terrorism. First, the world recognizes the global threat of this extremist ideology, second it takes security measures to address that and thirdly it has to recognize issues like Palestine."
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