The calls were broadcast by the al-Jazeera television network in an audiotape allegedly carrying the voice of Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in the global terror network.

Pakistan's largest Islamic party Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), embroiled in a protracted political battle with Musharraf over his unelected presidency and sweeping powers, rejected the exhortations.

"Myself and my party do not endorse Zawahri's views. We are trying to reform Pakistan's internal matters in our own way," JI senator Khurshid Ahmed told AFP.

"We have differences with Musharraf's policies, but we are not working to launch a coup against him. We are striving to bring change through a political struggle."

The speaker on the audiotape exhorted Pakistanis to avenge Musharraf's support of the US-led overthrow of Afghanistan's Taliban regime in late 2001 for harbouring bin Laden, and Pakistan's arrests of some 500 al-Qaeda suspects.

"We ask our Muslim brethren in Pakistan: until when will you put up with the traitor Musharraf, who sold the Muslims' blood in Afghanistan and handed over the Arab Mujahedin to crusader America?" the speaker said.

"Had it not been for his treason, the surrogate government would not have been installed in Kabul, that government which brought the Indians to Pakistan's western borders."

"Not only this. He opened up nuclear installations to US inspection, choked off the jihad in Kashmir... and is (planning) to recognize Israel all for a handful of dollars the Americans stack in his pocket...

"The officers and soldiers of the Pakistani army should realize that Musharraf will hand them over as prisoners to the Indians... and flee abroad to enjoy his secret (bank) accounts."

Zawahri urged "all Muslims in Pakistan" to close ranks to protect their country from "the crusade allied with the Hindus."

"Act, O Muslims in Pakistan before you wake up from your slumber to find Hindu soldiers raiding your homes in complicity with the Americans," said the top lieutenant of al-Qaeda terror chief Osama bin Laden.

The audiotape was aired along with a videotape showing the two men in an undetermined mountain location. Al-Jazeera said the videotape was probably recorded in late April or early May.

Many Pakistani officials believe India has gained influence in the post-Taliban administration, which is dominated by ethnic Tajiks from the anti-Taliban resistance and has little ethnic Pashtun representation.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, an MP and senior leader of the Taliban-sympathetic Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam party, cast doubt on the authenticity of the tape.

"Who can be sure that it is genuine, because with today's computer technology it is possible to (have) anyone speaking anything."

BBC Online adds: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has said he takes strong exception to al-Qaeda's deputy leader purportedly calling him a traitor.

General Musharraf, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, was speaking to the BBC on the second anniversary of the 11 September attacks.

He was responding to a tape broadcast on Wednesday in which the man said to be Osama Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, denounces General Musharraf as a "traitor" and calls on Pakistanis to overthrow him.

President Musharraf said the Pakistani authorities were doing their best to catch Bin Laden, who he thought was somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

General Musharraf said both the Muslim world and the West needed to work to bridge the differences which had led to the 2001 attacks.