New York: A 'global' terrorist summit, with representatives coming from various countries including US, was held in Pakistan this year, exposing the "second string" leadership of al-Qaeda network, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said.

"The personalities involved, the operations, the fact that a major explosives expert came here and went back... all this was extremely significant," 'Time' magazine quoted Musharraf as saying in its latest issue to be out on Aug 16, 2004.

The discovery of the March meeting has exposed the "second string" leadership of al-Qaeda, Musharraf told the magazine.

The summit was held in the lawless province of Waziristan in March and was attended by terrorism's elite including Abu Issa al-Hindi, an Indian convert to radical Islam who specialises in surveillance, the magazine said.

Others participants were Adnan el Shukrijumah, a commercial pilot and bomb-maker of Arab-Guyanese origin and Mohammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani-American who arrived at the summit with cash, sleeping bags and ponchos, it said.

Some of the participants were subsequently arrested, although some are still at large and are considered very dangerous, the magazine said, adding a few are believed to have done some of the surveillance of targets in New York City and elsewhere that authorities found out about last month.

"This was a meeting of a bunch of cold-blooded killers who are very skilled at what they do and have an intense desire to inflict an awful lot of pain and suffering on America," an official familiar with the summit was quoted as saying.