Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency has given India information about the Mumbai attacks, its prime minister said Friday, as he urged the world to help the two countries keep tensions in check. Yousuf Raza Gilani's remarks came shortly before US vice-president-elect Joe Biden arrived here for talks with Pakistani leaders including Gilani, focusing on simmering tensions with India in the wake of the carnage in Mumbai. “India has given 52 pages to the CIA and our ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) has given its feedback and information sharing. That has been passed on to India,” Gilani told reporters. Gilani said Pakistan and the US Central Intelligence Agency had had a good working relationship in the past, adding: “If some other information is needed, we are ready for cooperation.” “The world must not let tensions between India and Pakistan escalate,” Gilani said earlier as he opened a seminar on democracy. He described the situation on the India-Pakistan border as “very fragile” but said Pakistan's “quest for enhancing peace and security in South Asia remains sincere and steadfast.” Biden on Friday assured Pakistan's leaders of the incoming Obama administration's commitment to helping Islamabad fight extremists, the government here said. Biden made the remarks in talks with Pakistan's president, prime minister and army chief at the start of a regional tour with Republican senator Lindsey Graham. Although Biden's office has stressed he is in the region in his capacity as a senator, the trip is likely to be seen as carrying more weight, given Obama's plans to shift the focus in the US-led “war on terror” to South Asia. Zardari told Biden that “Pakistan was committed to fighting terrorism and extremism in its own interest,” the president's office said in a statement. Biden in turn assured Zardari that the new US administration would support Pakistan's counter-terrorism efforts, adding that Washington recognized Islamabad's “important contribution and sacrifices in the fight.” The Delaware senator received a special award from Zardari for his efforts to strengthen democracy in Pakistan, the aide said. Meanwhile, Gilani has rejected reports of differences with President Zardari on issues of sacking of National Security Advisor Mehmud Ali Durrani, and governance, and said that his dismissal was in the best national interest and for good governance. Later Friday, six small explosions went off outside theaters in Lahore on Friday wounding at least five people, police and rescue workers said. Fours blasts went off mid-evening outside a theater on the city-center Mall Road, wounding five people. About 90 minutes later, two more went off outside a theatre in another part of the city, police said. There were no reports of casualties from the second attack.
