President Musharraf last night called on the international campaign in Afghanistan urgently to raise the number of troops fighting the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

“You will have to increase numbers”, he said — either Afghan or foreign — because there was “a degree of dilution” in spreading the existing force over such a large area.

Even so, he added: “As a military man, I can say that the problem is not a military one — they are doing a good job, a hard job. It is very important we go down a political path which has been ignored in the past.”

Pakistan's beleaguered president delivered the forthright remarks just hours after landing in Britain. He will embark on a week-long tour through Europe to shore up crumbling support from governments who fear that he may have become one of the causes of his country's turmoil and not the solution.

His message, delivered in a relaxed and good-humoured tone that was at odds with the tense broadcasts of the past year, was nonetheless uncompromising on all the fronts where he had been criticised. “It appears to the world that Pakistan is on fire, that there are groups everywhere indoctrinating people and letting off bombs. It is not true,” he said. Most suicide bombs and fighting were in the tribal areas of Waziristan, he said.

President Musharraf bluntly dismissed an offer from Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defence, to send American troops to help in Waziristan. “I don't think this is possible at all, that any foreign combat forces will be allowed in Pakistan,” he told the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall. “It is militarily unwise, and would be politically unacceptable ... The man in the street does not want it. Please understand that they [the Americans] have their hands full in Afghanistan - please handle that first of all,” he said, adding that “the environment in the tribal areas is even more inhospitable”.

He also was “very negative” — delivered with a grin — about Hillary Clinton's suggestion that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal should be put under international management. “We guard it very jealously,” he said. “We have multilayered custodial controls.” Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was under the control of the 15,000-strong Army Strategic Force Command.

“The only way it would be endangered would be if al-Qaeda gets so strong that it defeats the Pakistan Army, or if Taleban supporters win the election, and the possibility is zero, multiplied by zero and divided by zero.”

He said that there was no question that the parliamentary elections on February 18 would be “free, fair, transparent and peaceful”. He added: “We have removed the bugs in the system that could be manipulated. Tell me what more I can do — it is beyond my imagination.”

He refused to accept criticism of his sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry last spring, which brought the judiciary into direct opposition to his military government and triggered the constitutional crisis.

“What would you do if a Chief Justice of any country is corrupt, politicised, nepotistic?,” he said. “I mean every word of it.” He cited in his own defence that he had given 50 television channels the freedom to start up, which Western governments had regarded as one of the unexpected benefits of his tenure. But since the November 3 state of emergency — now lifted — those stations have been subject to controls, and the President's tone yesterday soured to the point of anger when challenged by a reporter from the respected Dawn newspaper.

He dismissed those who had criticised him for infringing human rights and free speech, saying that they did not take account of the violence that accompanied protests in Pakistan, and despite the continuing violence and political uncertainty, he maintained “I am always an optimist. I am never a pessimist.”

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