A spokesman for Pakistan's largest hard-line Islamic group predicted the issue would further enrage ordinary Pakistanis, who have long believed that they were forced "at gunpoint" into supporting the war on terror.

"The temperature and anger will rise among Pakistanis because they will see that the Americans do not want dialogue or communication, but are instead exploiting a situation and compelling (Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez) Musharraf to support them," said Ameer ul-Azeem, of the opposition Islamic coalition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, also called MMA.

Some 500 MMA supporters protesting in Islamabad on Friday against the pope's recent remarks on Islam also condemned Musharraf for not standing up to the United States following the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Musharraf has sold his conscience, he has laid down under (President) Bush, he has stabbed Afghanistan in the back," said Hafiz Hussain Ahmad, a senior MMA leader.

Musharraf said that after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Richard Armitage, the former American deputy secretary of state, warned Pakistan's intelligence chief that US forces could bomb Pakistan if it did not switch support from the pro-al-Qaeda Taliban regime in Afghanistan to the US-led war on terror.

"The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,'" Musharraf told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview to air Sunday.

Musharraf said he reacted responsibly. "One has to think and take actions in the interests of the nation and that is what I did."

But he added: "I thought it was a very rude remark."

Armitage has said he never threatened to bomb Pakistan but that he delivered a tough message to the Muslim nation that it was either "with us or against us."