Qaeda's South Asia plan 'delusional'

India's prime minister has dismissed al-Qaeda's plan to set up a South Asia branch, saying it was "delusional" to think the country's Muslim minority would follow orders to wage jihad in the region.

"They are doing injustice towards the Muslims of our country," Narendra Modi said in an interview with CNN broadcast yesterday.

"If anyone thinks Indian Muslims will dance to their tune, they are delusional. Indian Muslims will live for India, they will die for India -- they will not want anything bad for India."

It was Modi's first reaction to al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri's announcement this month that the group would set up a new operation to take the fight to India, which has a large but traditionally moderate Muslim population, as well as Myanmar and Bangladesh. Modi said the threat from Islamist extremist groups was "a crisis against humanity, not a crisis against one country or one race.

"We have to frame this as a fight between humanity and inhumanity, nothing else," he added.

Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party was accused during the election campaign of trying to polarise votes along religious lines.

Party president Amit Shah faces charges of inflaming tensions in a speech during the campaign.

But in a widely-praised Independence Day speech in August, Modi said communal violence was "stalling the growth of the nation" and had gone on for "too long".

The Indian prime minister also predicted a deepening of ties with the United States ahead of his landmark trip to Washington, saying the world's two largest democracies were natural allies.

Modi is to meet President Barack Obama at the White House on September 29 and 30 on his first visit to the US as premier and since he was denied a visa following deadly riots in his home state of Gujarat 12 years ago.

Bilateral ties were also badly damaged last year by a row over the arrest and strip-search of an Indian diplomat in New York.

In the CNN interview, Modi acknowledged there had been "ups and downs in our relationship" but said that both countries shared common values.

"India and the USA are bound together, by history and culture. These ties will deepen further," said Modi.

Modi said that the United States' history of immigrant absorbtion and the vast Indian diaspora showed the people of both countries were inherently tolerant.

The Obama adminstration has been heavily courting Modi since he ousted the centre-left Congress party in May. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel have both met Modi in Delhi in recent weeks.

The visit to the US is part of frenzy of diplomatic activity by Modi who hosted China's President Xi Jinping for talks in India this week.