BBC News Online: World: South Asia

Pakistan hopes strikes 'over soon'

Pakistanis march against government support for the US

Reports said Pakistani troops were seen moving to secure the country's border with Afghanistan.

The US State Department said on Sunday Secretary of State Colin Powell would travel to India and Pakistan next week .

Pakistan tried to convince the Taleban to hand over Osama Bin Laden whom the US holds responsible for the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington.

But there has been popular opposition to the US stance and on Sunday 6,000 people demonstrated against America in the central city of Multan in Punjab province

'Reconciliation'

"We regret that diplomatic efforts to convince the Taleban leadership to respond to the international demands did not succeed and now military action has started against the Taleban regime," a statement from the Pakistan Foreign Ministry said.

"Pakistan did whatever it could to convince the Taleban leadership of the gravity of the situation and take the right decisions in the interest of the Afghan people," it said.

The ministry said it hoped the strikes would be "clearly targeted" to achieve the aims of the United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The statement was released shortly after the president, General Pervez Musharraf, met with senior military commanders to discuss the potential consequences of the US strikes.

"We also hope that the operations will end soon and concerted international effort will be undertaken to promote national reconciliation and help Afghanistan with economic reconstruction," the statement said.

Muslim 'duty'

But some religious leaders in Pakistan denounced the strikes and called on Pakistan's Muslims to unite with the Taleban.

"It is the duty of every Muslim to support their brothers in this critical hour," Riaz Durana of the Lahore-based Afghan Defence Council said.

He said they would support the Taleban "physically and morally".

About 6,000 people took to the streets of Multan in Punjab on Sunday chanting "death to America" and calling for a jihad, or holy war.

One of their leaders, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, from the radical Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) party had been put under arrest to prevent him from holding the rally but was later released.