British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged more counter-terrorism help to Pakistan on Sunday, revealing that three-quarters of terror plots investigated in Britain linked back to al-Qaida supporters in the country.

Brown traveled to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan over the weekend to visit British troops and bolster cooperation between India and Pakistan in the wake of the deadly Mumbai attacks that killed more than 160 people.

But his strongest message was delivered to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, whose wife Benazir Bhutto died last year in an attack launched by extremists.

Zardari faces a daunting challenge of tackling poverty and extremism in Pakistan as he tries to shore up support in the tribal regions and within his own government. Bhutto repeatedly alleged that Pakistan's security services had long-standing ties to extremist elements.

"The time has come for action and not words, and I want to help Pakistan and other countries root out terrorism," Brown told reporters in a joint news conference with Zardari.

Britain would offer Pakistan counter-terrorism equipment for detecting bombs and explosives at airports. It would also contribute $9 million to lure youths away from extremist activities by offering them educational materials and programs.

Brown discussed similar assistance with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier Sunday, including a better system for sharing intelligence.

Although British and American intelligence agencies helped thwart a trans-Atlantic airliner attack in 2006 - a plot that had links to Pakistan - fewer success stories have been attributed to intelligence information out of Pakistan or India.

The nuclear rivals fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 - two of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, whose status has emerged as a recurrent theme in the radicalization of young British Muslims.

Despite a peace process that began in 2004, tensions remain high and intelligence sharing has been limited.

India has blamed the Mumbai attacks on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamic group, straining relations even further.

Brown echoed the assertion, saying the group has long been on Britain's radar.

Abdullah Ghaznavi, Lashkar's chief spokesman, denied the allegation, saying his group targets Indian defense forces and installations to force India out of Kashmir.

"We reject the claim of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and urge him to independently investigate this matter instead of relying on false and fabricated evidence provided by India," Ghaznavi told The Associated Press in a call Sunday from an undisclosed location.

"This is a jihad and it will continue," he added.

He also claimed his group has "no direct or indirect links" with the Taliban or al-Qaida.

"We neither finance them nor support them," he said.

Brown said there was a "chain of terror" emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"I told President Zardari that three fourths of the most serious terror plots investigated by British authorities have links to al-Qaida in Pakistan," he said.

Britain has a large South Asian population. Most of its some 2 million Muslims are of Pakistani or Kashmiri origin.

The British suicide bombers who killed 52 London commuters in 2005 had family links to Pakistan, and Indian-born Dhiren Barot was jailed in Britain in 2006 over plots to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, other U.S. financial targets and landmark London hotels.

Barot, who was raised in the U.K. and regarded by British intelligence as a key al-Qaida figure, traveled to Kashmir in 1995 to fight against Indian forces.

Pakistan has also seen recent terror attacks. Some 54 people were killed in September a truck bomb exploded, gutting the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

"All of us suffer when terrorists are active and are able to impose their will," Brown said.

Brown said he asked Singh if he would allow British authorities to question the only known surviving gunman in the Mumbai massacre, and asked Zardari for similar cooperation with arrested suspects. Neither leader publicly responded to the request.

One British national and two people with dual nationality were killed in the attacks.

According to India, the 10 gunmen - nine of whom were killed - were from Pakistan, as were the handlers, masterminds, weapons, training camps and financing.

Pakistan has arrested some suspected plotters and shut offices of a charity allegedly linked to Lashkar, but it is pressing India to provide evidence to aid in prosecutions.

India now finds itself in the awkward position of potentially having to investigate terrorist attacks hand-in-hand with its longtime nemesis.

Zardari said he hoped India will share more leads once it completed its investigation and saw the Mumbai tragedy as "an opportunity to cooperate with India, to take the relationship with India to another level."

Brown arrived in India following a visit Saturday to Afghanistan, where he met with some of Britain's 8,200 troops and hinted that Britain would provide more - an announcement expected Monday.

He said fighting the Taliban had kept Europe's streets safer.

Al-Qaida and Taliban militants have found safe havens on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border, to the chagrin of U.S. and NATO leaders who fear the insurgents are using those sanctuaries to plot attacks on their troops in Afghanistan.

Improving the border security "is in all our interest" Brown said.

Somalia's president fired his prime minister Sunday and accused him of paralyzing the government with "corruption, inefficiency and treason." Hours later, as the government veered toward collapse, Islamic insurgents held a brazen news conference in the capital and vowed never to negotiate with the leadership.

President Abdullahi Yusuf announced his decision in Baidoa, one of the few towns the government still controls. Islamic militants accused of ties to al-Qaida have taken over most of the country.

"The government has been paralyzed by corruption, inefficiency and treason," Yusuf said. He will name a new prime minister in three days, he said.

The prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, promised to challenge his dismissal, saying the president lacked the authority to fire him. The president said Somalia itself lacked a legal government because too many ministers have already resigned.

"The president was speaking in his usual personal capacity, which is always contrary to the country's existing rules and regulations," Hussein told The Associated Press.

Later in the day, Sheik Muktar Robow, a spokesman for the al-Shabab insurgent group, held a news conference in the capital, Mogadishu, in open disregard for the government.

"We will never talk to the government and will never accept any political power sharing. Our aim is only to see Islamic law running this country," Robow said.

Somalia has been without an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictatorship and then turned on one another.

Somalia is at a dangerous crossroads. Ethiopia, which has been protecting the Somali government, recently announced it would withdraw its troops by the end of this month. That will leave the government vulnerable to Islamic insurgents, who began a brutal insurgency in 2007. They have captured most of southern Somalia and move freely inside the capital, Mogadishu.

In the past they have brought a semblance of security to the country, but have done it by carrying out public executions and floggings. On Saturday, fighters loyal to the most powerful arm of the Islamist movement - al-Shabab - publicly executed by firing squad two men accused of killing their parents.

Civilians have borne the brunt of the violence surrounding the insurgency, with thousands killed or maimed by mortar shells, machine-gun crossfire and grenades. The United Nations says there are 300,000 acutely malnourished children in Somalia, but attacks and kidnappings of aid workers have shut down many humanitarian projects.

The lawlessness has allowed piracy to flourish off the coast, with bandits taking in about $30 million in ransoms this year alone.

The United States worries Somalia could be a terrorist breeding ground, and accuses al-Shabab - "The Youth" - of harboring the al-Qaida-linked terrorists who blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Britain shares that fear.

Somalia is a basket case," Defense Secretary John Hutton said Sunday at a security conference in Bahrain. "It is a classic area where you have got ungoverned space, no effective state apparatus and criminality and potential terrorism."

But he said it was too early to say whether foreign troops should be deployed.

In the past, international forces have not fared well in Somalia. A U.N. peacekeeping force met disaster in 1993, when militiamen shot down two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters and battled U.S. troops, killing 18.

The troops from Ethiopia - the region's military powerhouse - have come under regular attack since arriving two years ago. They have been largely confined to urban bases, as have the 2,600 African Union peacekeepers so far sent for a mission that was approved at 8,000 members.

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Gaza's militant Hamas rulers marshaled hundreds of thousands of supporters to a huge anniversary rally on Sunday, a show of muscle featuring a skit of a mock-captive Israeli soldier begging for his freedom.

Marking 21 years since its founding, a triumphant Hamas bragged about its violent exploits, promised more money to Gaza's impoverished people, and announced it would soon stop recognizing the legitimacy of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules only the West Bank now.

Organizers said about 300,000 Hamas supporters crowded into a dusty outdoor arena and spilled over into nearby streets. Many waved flags and sported baseball caps in the Islamic group's signature green color.

In the skit, Hamas paraded a Palestinian speaking Hebrew and dressed in an Israeli soldier's uniform - a reference to Israeli Sgt. Gilad Schalit, captured by Hamas-allied militants in June 2006.

"I miss my Mom and Dad," said the man playing the Israeli soldier, kneeling as he spoke. "Tell Olmert, why don't you take care of your soldier?"

The capture of Schalit in a June 2006 cross-border raid is an open wound in Israeli society. The taunt at the rally drew condemnation from Israel, which has been indirectly negotiating the soldier's release with Hamas for the past 2 1/2 years.

A spokesman for the Israeli government, Mark Regev, called the skit "another example of (Hamas) cruelty and inhumanity."

In comments aired Sunday, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said a six-month truce with Israel would not be renewed after it expires this week. Interviewed on a Hamas-affiliated Lebanese TV channel, Mashaal did not explicitly threaten renewed attacks, saying instead that Hamas would respond to developments.

On Sunday, Israel closed its passenger crossing with Gaza to journalists in response to Palestinian rocket fire over the weekend. For much of the past month, Israel has banned reporters from entering the territory after militants fired rockets and mortars at Israeli communities.

Hamas, founded in Gaza in December 1987, is sworn to Israel's destruction and was involved in dozens of suicide bombings that killed more than 250 Israelis. It seized Gaza by force in June 2007 after months of fighting with Abbas' Fatah forces.

Hamas contends Abbas' term ends Jan. 8, four years after he was elected president. Abbas has argued that he had an additional year so the presidential term could dovetail with parliament's.

The huge turnout at the Gaza rally was a pointed display of strength directed at both Israel and Fatah, and further evidence of the Muslim militant group's unchallenged control over 1.4 million Gazans.

During an hourlong speech, the Hamas Gaza prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, read out a list of construction projects and funds to be distributed to impoverished Gaza residents.

The projects indicate Hamas is still able to smuggle cash through tunnels that crisscross the territory's border with Egypt - at a time when the Western-backed Abbas government in the West Bank has struggled to pay salaries.

Hamas also bragged of attacks conducted against Israel in the past 21 years, inflating the numbers.

In his speech, Haniyeh said Hamas was only strengthened by Israeli sanctions.

"It is a letter to Obama, to the Zionists and those who stand in the same trenches as them: We say with confidence, you will not be victorious," Haniyeh said.

The U.S. and other Western countries designate Hamas as a terror organization. In a pre-election speech to a Jewish group, President-elect Barack Obama said he also considers Hamas a terrorist group.

Also Sunday, Israel said a delayed release of 227 Palestinian prisoners would take place on Monday. The release is a goodwill gesture to Abbas' Western-backed government.

The prisoners were to be released last week for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

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