MONTREAL: Pakistan's exiled former leader Benazir Bhutto warned Saturday that the threat of terrorism in northwestern Pakistan's lawless tribal zones will not go away while a military government is in power.

"The root cause of the problem lies in the inability of the government of Pakistan to assert governmental authority and state authority in the tribal areas," Bhutto told Canada's CBC public television channel.

"As long as we have a cabinet ... that needs the threat of terrorism to sustain a military dictatorship in Pakistan we're never going to get rid of terrorism," she said of the leadership of President Pervez Musharraf.

General Musharraf came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

Bhutto, who served as Pakistan's prime minister from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996, now leads her highly influential Pakistan People's Party from exile in London but has declared she intends to return to Pakistan to contest the next legislative election.

She met Musharraf in Abu Dhabi last month to discuss a possible power-sharing deal, ahead of the elections planned for around the end of the year. Bhutto said she is open to such a deal as long as Musharraf gives up his role as head of the military.

"The military is the problem," she said Saturday. "True democracy will deal with the social and economic needs of the people of Pakistan."

She also called on the international community to support a transfer to a regular democratic government in Islamabad.

Bhutto's participation in the election would depend on a constitutional amendment that would allow prime ministers to serve a third term.

An amendment limiting PMs to two terms was inserted by Musharraf in 2003 to prevent Bhutto and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif -- whom Musharraf ousted in the 1999 coup -- from taking office a third time as both have ruled the country twice.

Pakistan's central authorities hold little control over the tribal areas, which straddle the border with Afghanistan.

The United States has been pressuring Pakistan to crack down on parts of the region which it says are harbouring fighters loyal to the Taliban extremist movement which is battling US and international forces in Afghanistan.

"The money that has gone into Pakistan so far has not led to the pacification of the tribal areas where people are desperately poor and the militants exploit this poverty to hire them as soldiers," Bhutto said Saturday.

"Our people have been thrown to the wolves. They've been thrown to the militants." - AFP/ac