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Air Force One arrives in tense Pakistan capital

Pakistani police officers detain a protester during an anti-U.S. rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Friday. Anti-U.S. protests erupted across Pakistan hours before President Bush was to arrive. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Ron Hutcheson Knight Ridder
Pakistani police officers detain a protester during an anti-U.S. rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Friday. Anti-U.S. protests erupted across Pakistan hours before President Bush was to arrive. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – President Bush arrived in Pakistan on Friday amid protests and violence that highlighted the tensions beneath a vital alliance in the war on terrorism.

Pakistan’s capital was under a security lockdown as Air Force One swept into a military air base outside Islamabad under the cover of darkness, with its exterior lights off and the cabin shades closed. Bush’s arrival followed a day of anti-American protests and a suicide car bombing in Karachi on Thursday that killed a U.S. diplomat and three others.

Bush, who flew to Pakistan from neighboring India, said security concerns wouldn’t stop him from showing support for President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf’s decision to side with the United States has alienated Islamic extremists in Pakistan and made him a target for assassination.

“He has got a difficult job, made really difficult by the fact that people have tried to kill him,” Bush told PTV, a Pakistani television network, in an interview last week. “Extremists have decided that he is an obstacle to their vision.”

The Pakistani government was taking no chances with security during Bush’s visit, closing to the public the entire section of the city where Bush and his entourage were staying and where he’d meet with Musharraf and other officials today. Police stood at intervals along the 14-mile route from the air base to Islamabad and manned concrete barriers set up across main roads to block the area.

Some 4,000 police officers were deployed in Islamabad and 2,000 in the neighboring city of Rawalpindi, where protesters planned an anti-Bush rally today. Police prepared water cannons and tear gas to make sure the demonstrators stayed out of Islamabad. The protest, led by former cricket star Imran Khan, reflects what appears to be growing dissatisfaction with Bush and Musharraf.

Demonstrations had broken out in cities across the country before Bush’s visit. Police in Karachi used tear gas and batons to disperse a crowd near the U.S. consulate. In other cities, protesters egged on by Muslim clerics vented their anger at Bush and at newspaper cartoons in Europe portraying images of the Prophet Muhammad.

Bush has praised Musharraf for his help against terrorism, but wants him to do more. Bush declared his desire to capture Osama bin Laden more than four years ago, but the terrorist chieftain remains at large somewhere along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to U.S. intelligence.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has complained that Pakistan could do more to root out Islamic extremists who use the country as a base for cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan was one of the few countries that recognized Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime during its alliance with bin Laden’s terrorist network before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.