ISLAMABAD, July 30, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Amid mounting international pressure on Pakistan's religious schools, President Pervez Musharraf said Friday, July 30, ordered all foreign students attending madrassahs to leave the country.

"We've decided all those who are here – there are about 1,400 -- they must leave," Musharraf told foreign correspondents in the garrison city of Rawalpindi Friday, July 30, Reuters reported.

"We will not issue visas to such people," said the Pakistani leader.

The number of foreign students attending madrassahs in Pakistan has already fallen sharply since the government imposed tougher visa restrictions after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Musharraf said religious schools would have to register by the end of the year, calling madrassahs "the world's biggest non-governmental organization helping the poorest segment of the society".

"Don't think they are all negative, this is not the reality," he said.

There are around 12,000 madrassahs in Pakistan, often offering free religious education and board for more than one million Pakistani children, especially in areas neglected by state education services.

Thousands of Pakistanis took to the street on Friday, July 22, to protest the crackdown on madrasahs ordered after the July 7 London bomb attacks, carried out by three Britons of Pakistani descent and a fourth Briton of Jamaican origin.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has urged Pakistan to move against "radical" madrassahs.

Police said one of the men, Shehzad Tanweer, visited a religious school during trips to Pakistan in the past two years, a claim refuted by the Madrasah in question.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said the foreign students have to leave the country soon, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We have decided to repatriate them because we don't want to see our country defamed if any of these students are found involved in any terrorist activities in future," he said.

"We are in the process of checking the visa documents of these students, and the ones whose time to stay in Pakistan has expired would be immediately repatriated to their countries," Sherpao told a Karachi function.

"We'll cancel the visas given to the rest and will repatriate those, too, to their countries."

Musharraf also ordered the arrest of leaders of "extremist groups," adding that his security forces were cooperating closely with their British counterparts.

"The action against the banned organizations will continue. It is a continuous process and we will be very strongly dealing with them. We have decided we are going to act against their leadership."

Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless military coup six years ago, said he was in a far stronger position to confront forces of religious extremism than he had been after the 9/11 attacks.

At that time, the economy was weak, Pakistan was close to a fourth war with India, and stronger action could have led to internal disturbances.

"I could have rocked the boat so much it could have capsized," said Musharraf, who survived two assassination attempts in December 2003.

As he spoke, police arrested another 200 preachers and prayer leaders for delivering sermons allegedly inciting anti-Western and sectarian hatred, a government official monitoring the crackdown told AFP.

The latest round-up raised to 800 the number of detainees since Musharraf launched the crackdown last week under pressure from Britain to investigate Pakistani links in the London bombings.

Several people have been detained based on leads from telephone records.

"We are in the process of going through each one of those (telephone) numbers. Anyone who had contact with those chaps we are weeding out," he said, referring to London bombers.