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SPIEGEL: The Taliban is increasingly calling on the poor to follow them and to chase away the landlords and feudal lords. Are the Islamists in the process of transforming themselves into a social movement that pits Pakistan's underprivileged against the rich elite, who have opposed land reform? Zardari: I don't see that. In regions of the northwest border provinces, there is no feudalism because there is no land available that would be sufficient for agriculture -- it is all mountainous terrain. There are old families and there is a tribal chief system that relies on tribal laws that has been indigenous for centuries. The Taliban have superiority of numbers and arms and are more aggressive, so they sometimes overpower the local authority.

It would be a great gesture if Osama bin Laden were to come out into the open in order to give us a chance of catching him. The question right now is whether he is alive or dead. The Americans have told me they don't know. They are much better informed and they have been looking for him for a much longer time. They have got more equipment, more intelligence, more satellite eavesdropping equipment and more resources on the ground in Afghanistan, and they say they have no trace of him. Our own intelligence is of the same opinion. Presumably, he does not exist anymore, but that has not been confirmed.

SPIEGEL: Why do you leave the elimination of top terrorists in the Pakistani tribal areas to the Americans, whose drone attacks are extremely unpopular amongst the populace? Why don't you handle this yourselves? Zardari: If we had the drone technology, then we would. It would be a plus. We have always said that we don't appreciate the way the Americans are handling it. We think it is counterproductive. But it is mostly happening in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan -- for all intents and purposes no man's land.

Pakistan is "battling for its own survival", its president, Asif Ali Zardari, has told visiting US special envoy for Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.

Mr Zardari said Pakistan needed "unconditional support" to fight terrorism and extremism.

Mr Holbrooke, the joint US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Islamabad after talks with Afghan leaders in Kabul.

It was a signal moment in Pakistan’s political development: A huge demonstration forced the restoration of a dismissed chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, a symbol of democracy and the rule of law. The army did not stage a coup, but insisted that the government accept a compromise.

President Zardari has been severely weakened by his efforts to squelch a national protest and faces defections from the usually cohesive Pakistan Peoples Party. His opponent, Mr. Sharif, emerged as a leader in waiting, but with no clear path to power.

Mr. Sharif, often held in suspicion in Washington because of his leaning toward Islamic conservatives, was more cooperative than had been thought, some United States officials suggested. In Washington, there was an awareness that Mr. Sharif’s reputation from the Bush administration of being too close to the Islamists might be overdrawn, and that his relationships with some of the Islamic parties and with Saudi Arabia could be useful, said a foreign policy expert familiar with the thinking of the Obama administration on Pakistan.

In Afghanistan on Tuesday, dozens of civilians are thought to have died in US air strikes on Taleban targets

The White House meetings with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are likely to be cagey affairs -- both visitors have been heavily criticized by Obama's administration and are also wary of each other. Equally, Obama's new strategy for defeating al Qaeda and Taliban militants operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan has not been universally welcomed in either country.

As it seeks reliable allies in the region, the United States, which has funneled $10 billion in aid to Islamabad over the past eight years, can sometimes give conflicting signals. At times it has praised Pakistan's military and at others accused it and its powerful spy agency of helping al Qaeda.

"Some have raised concern that elements within the Pakistani military and intelligence services may be sympathetic to militant groups, leading to caution on our part," Obama's undersecretary of defense for policy, Michele Flournoy, told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee last week.