Acting Pakistan Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq said on Sunday that Pakistan knew that "war on terror is our war, and we have to fight it."
"We are under no pressure, whatsoever," he categorically stated, assailing the impression to the contrary as "total misperception."
He commented this in response to a question by the FOX News anchorperson in a live telecast, while referring to the arrest of al Qaida-linked terrorists who were plotting suicide attacks on government leaders, and the US Embassy in Islamabad.
About the busting up of terrorist plots, Sadiq said that Pakistani authorities had made a number of arrests. At least 12 arrests were made in the last 48 hours.
"We have conclusive proof that they are linked with al Qaida," he stated adding, "Two of their leaders were Egyptian nationals" and at large. "We are looking for them."
The anchorperson asked the envoy was Pakistan under "good deal of pressure now" from the US to produce results, as far as the war on terrorism.
To another question, Mohammad Sadiq said it was correct that some human intelligence was involved, and that "it was, basically, all Pakistani intelligence agencies which got the information and worked on that."
He said: "since the operation is still going on, we are still looking for more suspects." A lot of information, he said "is not made public, at this stage, including the identities of the people arrested."
When asked that 'You are questioning these people, what kind of information you are getting?'
Mohammad Sadiq answered: "We are getting more names, of course, and because of this interrogation and questioning, we have established that they have links with al Qaeda."
When questioned: 'What kind of links with al Qaeda?' He said, "Basically, al Qaeda does not work like all other terrorist organisations, in one monolithic organisational structure - they work under different cells -some of them are sleeping cells, some of them are, basically, gangs which take one or two actions, and then disappear."
"This is one of the group which we believe is linked to al Qaeda, was getting its instructions from al Qaeda, but, basically, we have not established what is the name of this group, or what kind of direct links it had with al Qaeda."
"People involved on the top of the group who were giving directions to the people arrested have definite al Qaeda links."
Asked as, to who was dictating the arrested suspects to follow the orders, Sadiq said: "the terrorist organisations work clandestinely. They work underground. They do not have an open membership, for example; they have different cells, and different cells work, and these cells are not necessarily linked with each other, or, they sometimes do not know about each other. I think, by nature, this is an activity, one could expect that they will act like this."
When asked that a lot of people think, most of the experts, we talked with, believe that Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan or right there on Pakistan-Afghanistan border- is there you think he is and if so, what keeps you from going after him.
Sadiq said: "Yes. Actually, we do not know what is the exact location of Osama bin Laden. We will be very happy to know the location of Osama bin Laden. People who think they know where bin Laden is, we would like them to share this information with us."
"It's difficult to say," was the Charge d'Affaires reply, when asked was Osama bin Laden alive. "We believe that bin Laden is alive, and we are looking for him, and hopefully, we will find him."