Pakistan faces new coup threat: Musharraf

LONDON: Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf warned that the country is at risk of a new coup, as he prepared to launch his own audacious bid for a comeback as a civilian president.

The retired general also said the army should be given a constitutional role in the turbulent politics of the nuclear-armed nation, where the government is struggling to tackle rampant militancy and a crumbling economy.

Musharraf, who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and stood down in 2008, said current army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani could be forced to intervene against the unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari.

Following a reported crisis meeting this week between Kayani, Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Musharraf was asked at a debating forum in London on Wednesday night whether he thought a new putsch was likely.

"Well, you see the photographs of the meeting with the president and the prime minister and I can assure you they were not discussing the weather," he replied to debate host Christopher Meyer, ex-British ambassador to the United States.

"There was a serious discussion of some kind or other and certainly at this moment all kinds of pressures must be on this army chief," added Musharraf, who hand-picked Kayani as his successor in the post in 2007.