By Paul Anderson BBC correspondent in Islamabad

The commission criticised treatment of al-Qaeda supporters

The conflict, it said, would play into the hands of the religious right.

The commission made the warning during a presentation of human rights abuses and improvements in Pakistan during 2002.

The commission also said President Pervez Musharraf's transfer of power to the parliament and government was fundamentally flawed.

'Rights eroded'

One of the Human Rights Commission's leaders, Asma Jehangir, said liberal and progressive forces in the Muslim world would be marginalised by war.

She said Pakistan's contribution to the US war on terror had already led to the erosion of human rights and a war against Iraq would exacerbate the situation.

She said the international community had given a carte blanche to General Musharraf, who she described as a military dictator.

Musharraf - still a military dictator, the commission says

She was referring to the extra-judicial transfer to the Americans of hundreds of foreign al-Qaeda suspects.

On the domestic front, the commission said there had been some advances in human rights, such as the greater representation of women in parliament.

But it criticised the transfer of power from President Musharraf to parliament.

The general seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

The commission said a series of orders issued last year shifted real power to the unelected president and a military-dominated National Security Council.

'Functioning democracy'

Pakistan's Information Minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, dismissed her criticisms.

He said General Musharraf had stuck to the internationally agreed timetable for democracy to the day.

The fact that the opposition was attacking the government in full force, he said, was testimony to Pakistan's functioning democracy.

He also said foreign al-Qaeda suspects, and there are about 350 of them, were only handed over after the authorities got permission from their countries of origin.

The commission's report sits awkwardly with the president's assertion that the transfer to civilian rule is now complete after the recent elections to the upper house of parliament.

Western governments have shared that assertion.