Pakistan celebrated its 60th anniversary today with flag-raisings, cannon salutes and bursts of gunfire but security fears and the climate of political unease conspired to blunt the joy.

Falling bullets from gunfire in Islamabad killed two women and injured 19 people while a homemade bomb damaged power lines in Karachi.

Security checkpoints screened revellers in the capital, a legacy of the two suicide bombings in Islamabad last month, part of a wave of terrorist violence that has killed nearly 400 people this summer.

A security alert also upset the hundreds of people who had come to pay their respects at the mausoleum of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founder, in the port city of Karachi. "I come here every year with my family, but there was a fear this time due to bomb threats across the country,” said Mohammad Yaqoob.

Anxieties about Pakistan's domestic battle with extremism and its sensitive international relationships, above all with the US, permeated speeches by President Pervez Musharraf and his Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, to mark the occasion.

General Musharraf, who last week considered declaring a state of emergency to strengthen his hand in his twin fights against militants in Pakistan's unruly north and the lawyers of the Supreme Court, made a plea for moderation. Echoing the hopes of Ali Jinnah for a moderate, democratic, Islamic state, he said:

“I urge all Pakistani citizens to get involved in the electoral process and become the instruments of enlightened moderation in their beloved country."

For his part, Mr Aziz made an apparent reference to recent comments in Washington about the need to strike at terrorists who have sought refuge within Pakistan's poorly controlled border regions with Afghanistan. “I want to make it clear that not under any circumstances will we allow any foreign power to enter Pakistan’s territory,” he said.

Newspapers also reflected the ambivalent mood. An editorial in the English-language daily newspaper, Dawn, read: “True, we have made blunder after blunder, committed terrible crimes against our own people. All said and done, there has been progress, though, admittedly, the rate could have been faster."

The President's speech came after a 31-gun salute in Islamabad, which was followed by 21-gun salutes in Pakistan’s four provincial capitals. The dawn raising of the flag on the border with India at Wagah, just outside Lahore, also attracted a crowd of hundreds, chanting “Pakistan Zindabad!" (Long live Pakistan!”)

As night fell, thousands of people also gathered for a fireworks display in Rawalpindi that was due to start at midnight, the precise moment of Pakistan's founding on the night of August 14/15, 1947. The moment was chosen to allow Britain's last Viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten, to attend independence celebrations in both India and Pakistan. India celebrates its 60th birthday tomorrow.

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