Karachi (PTI): With militant attacks on the rise in Pakistan's restive North West Frontier Province, the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Friday said that Chechen, Uzbek and Afghan terrorists were involved to destabilise his country.

Listing law and order and confronting extremism and terrorism as the main challenges facing his government, Gilani told reporters at the airport here that these militants were receiving funds from abroad.

Gilani's comments assume significance as in recent utterances top American and NATO military commanders and security analysts have drawn attention to Chechen, Uzbek and Arab militants being active on the Pakistani soil.

"They want to form a parallel government, they want to challenge the writ of the government and we have decided that we will not (allow) the militants (to do that)," he said in remarks as incidents of militant attacks in the NWFP are on the rise.

But at the same time, he said, the government wanted to conduct a dialogue with militants who lay down their arms so that they could be isolated and brought into the mainstream.

He said militants in the NWFP and the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan were carrying out attacks and blowing up girls' schools, barber shops, CD shops and other properties.