Cameron 'has no regrets in Pakistan row'

President Asif Ali Zardari arrived in London last night for a five-day visit including talks with Mr Cameron, despite mounting pressure to cancel the trip.

Mr Cameron sparked anger when he said last week during a trip to India that elements in Pakistan should not be allowed to "promote the export of terror whether to India, whether to Afghanistan or to anywhere else in the world".

Despite the anger his remarks provoked Mr Cameron stuck to his guns yesterday and insisted it should not affect Britain's "strong" relationship with Pakistan.

He said: "I gave a pretty clear and frank answer to a clear and frank question and I don't regret that at all.

"It is important to speak frankly about these things while at the same time, as I did in India, recognising that in Pakistan they themselves have suffered terribly from terrorism.

"The president himself lost his wife to terrorists but that only reinforces the fact that we have to work with them to close down the terror networks that are in Pakistan that threaten our soldiers in Afghanistan, have threatened innocent people in India and have threatened innocent people all over the world, including here in the UK."

Britain's high commissioner Adam Thomson was called in on Monday in the capital Islamabad for urgent talks with Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi following Mr Cameron's remarks.

Pakistan's opposition leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has called the president's visit "inappropriate and an insult to the sentiments of the Pakistani people".

However Mr Cameron said Pakistan remained "an important ally of the United Kingdom".

Asked what he hoped to get out of Friday's talks, the Prime Minister said: "The key thing is to build on the relationship that we have and to make sure we are co-operating on security issues.

"We have a strong relationship where we are one of the biggest aid donors to Pakistan, we have a very strong embassy there, we have very strong trade links, very strong historical links and, of course, there is a huge British Asian population with links back into Pakistan that helps cement the relationship between our countries.

"But it is a relationship that I am convinced can survive speaking frankly about problems as I see them and that is what I did."

Last night there were reports that Mr Zardari planned to press Mr Cameron during their meeting at Chequers on Friday to be "more careful in what he says".

Earlier this week Mr Zardari made outspoken remarks of his own when, during a visit to France, he claimed the international community is losing the war against the Taliban.

"This is above all because we have lost the battle to win hearts and minds," he said. He said there could be no quick fix and that the country needed a long-term solution to its problems.

Mr Zardari will meet Cabinet ministers tomorrow and on Saturday will host a rally of his Pakistan People's Party in Birmingham to speak to members of the Pakistani community about the issues facing the country.

He has, however been subject to criticism at home with questions over why he has not returned to Pakistan, which is suffering its worst flooding in decades and a continuing wave of violence.

Yesterday, gunmen killed at least 45 people in Pakistan's largest city Karachi after the assassination of a local politician set off a cycle of revenge attacks.

Dozens of vehicles and shops were set on fire as security forces struggled to regain control of the city, while schools were closed and most business ground to a halt.

Security guards beheaded in raid

Six private security guards have been beheaded during a bank robbery in northern Afghanistan.

A police spokesman in Balkh province said poison was probably mixed into the guards' food on Monday evening at a branch of Kabul Bank in Mazar-e-Sharif.

An unknown number of robbers later beheaded the guards and took about $269,000 (169,920) in US and Afghan currency.

The robbery came as Taliban insurgents launched a short but intense ground attack on Kandahar Air Field, Nato's largest base in southern Afghanistan, but failed to breach its defences.