Islamabad: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that any US attack on Iraq would create internal strife in the country and effect its fledgling economy.

An American attack on Iraq would have a domestic fallout and economic impact, he said, pointing out, "Even the common man is now talking of this issue - an attack on Iraq will create some kind of internal disturbance in Pakistan".

On Pakistan's stand on Iraq, he said Islamabad was too tied up with various problems to worry about US-Iraq confrontation but at the same time maintained that the US attack on Iraq would have a domestic fallout.

"We already have our plateful in our region. Pakistan is involved on the Western border with whatever is happening in Afghanistan and al-Qaida. On our East is tension with India on the issue of Kashmir. We also have our own sectarian problem within Pakistan. So one does not want to get involved anywhere else in the world," he told CNN in an interview after his return from a week-long visit to the US.

About his earlier statements that Osama bin Laden may have been dead, he said "It is just a conjecture, I cannot be sure and I have never given definitive statement. Out of the possibilities, I believe that it is the leading possibility, but I cannot be sure, he may be alive."

Musharraf said he believed that Osama died for two reasons. In the beginning of attack in Afghanistan, the intelligence reports said that Osama was heading to Tora Bora region. Each one of the hundreds of caves in Tora Bora was bombed. "I know for sure that they have not been searched out, so we don't know what is inside those caves."

Secondly, Musharraf said Osama was considered to be a kidney patient on dialysis and had two dialysis machines. "One wonders whether he was getting treated in those mountains. So for these two reasons I believe maybe that he is not alive. But as I said, this is not a definitive answer, it is a calculated guess, he said adding al-Qaida would not be strong without him."

"Because any organisation of this kind has to have the motivating factor to give it homogeneity in leadership. The other factor is command and communication. So homogeneity is given by a leadership with proper command and communication within itself. So, if we disturb all these elements, there will be no homogeneity and there cannot be an organised body," he said.

Replying to a question about al-Qaida being behind recent acts of terrorism in Pakistan the President said, "This is a presumption as yet, we have not got definite information. There is al-Qaida element obviously."

He referred to recent arrests of some terrorists in Karachi and said there were ten al-Qaida people, including one Egyptian, one Saudi and eight Yemenis.

"There is no doubt that they are al-Qaida. But whether few terrorist attacks in Pakistan in the past three or four months included a nexus between the sectarian extremists and al-Qaida, there is no conclusive evidence of that but the possibility does exist that there was some this kind of nexus, may be."

PTI