US military operations against Afghanistan should end with the capture of Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan's foreign minister said Friday, warning that an extended campaign would have collateral damage throughout the Islamic world. In an interview in Islamabad, Abdul Sattar described Afghans as a people who had become "hostage to a small group of foreigners to whom they have given shelter" -- a reference to Bin Laden and his legions of militants from around the world who have been trained in Afghanistan.
Pakistan, the former ally and main backer of the Taliban regime which has sheltered Bin Laden, has in turn become a hostage of Afghanistan's policies, Sattar said.
In the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, Islamabad has agreed to cooperate with the US action against its neighbour, risking a backlash from sections of its own population.
Although protests against Pakistan's role in the crisis have so far been relatively muted, they have grown more violent since the air strikes began on Sunday and on Friday thousands of security forces fought running battles with demonstrators in the country's largest city, Karachi. Although Musharraf appears to have the situation under control, he has made it clear that he expects the US military campaign to be as brief as possible, given its goals of dismantling the Taliban and bin Laden's military infrastructure.
Sattar said Pakistan hoped these objectives would be achieved "sooner rather than later."
"It is our hope that bin Laden and his associates will be captured and brought to justice soon and his camps closed," Sattar told a small group of journalists, adding this should mark the end of US operations.
A lengthy operation, he warned, was bound to lead to "collateral damage," not just in Afghanistan but also in other Islamic countries.

Despite the rhetoric of religious radicals, Sattar said the "vast majority" of Pakistanis agreed with the government's decision to back US action, which he said had been taken within the framework of UN Security Council resolutions.
Sattar, who returned on Thursday from Doha where he attended a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), said he could understand concern about Afghan civilians being caught up in the bombing.
But he said the Taliban knew what it had to do to avoid any innocent victims -- hand over bin Laden. By refusing to do so, they had not acted in the interests of their people.
"We have tried our best to persuade them to implement the resolutions of the UN (on bin Laden) but they wouldn't listen to us," Sattar said.
Sattar acknowledged the decision to offer logistical cooperation for the US action had caused problems for Pakistan but said no limits on the extent of this had been fixed.
"We are all facing dilemmas," he said.
Islamabad has offered the use of two airports for possible search and recovery operations, but Sattar said active Pakistani involvement in aggressive action against Afghanistan was out of the question.
"That would be a trauma," he said, underlining the fact that some Pakistani soldiers had close ethnic links to Afghanistan. "This has been explained and accepted by the United States," he added.
Pakistan is the only country in the world to still maintain diplomatic relations with the Taliban. "No one is saying we should sever links," he said, adding many countries had approached Pakistan for help in communicating with the Taliban. Bureau Report