ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistani militants and tribesmen on Wednesday urged US president-elect Barack Obama to break with his country's divisive anti-terror strategy, but many feared there will be little change. Some tribal leaders said they will give Obama the benefit of the doubt for now. The Jamaat-ud-Dawa, considered a "terrorist organisation" by the United States, said a change in direction could help heal rifts with Muslim nations. The secretary-general of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Munawwar Hasan, even likened Obama's victory to the ousting earlier this year of former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally in the "war on terror". "People in both countries have rejected President (George W) Bush's war-based policies," said Hasan. But he and others said the Democratic Party senator still needed to learn a lesson that "most of the rest of the world hates his country. "He should understand this fact and devise future policies to change the US' posture on the world," he added. "President Obama will have to change his country's policy which backs undemocratic governments in other countries and will have to encourage democracy outside the US." US missile strikes against suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in Pakistan's lawless border region in recent months have prompted strong protests from Islamabad. Some tribal elders also want a complete withdrawal of US and NATO troops from neighbouring Afghanistan. Obama has said he supports both policies, warning that US forces should even act against militants inside Pakistan, including Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, if Pakistan was "unable or unwilling to take them out". Locals in North Waziristan said they were bracing for future missile strikes while tribal leader Abdul Wadood Afridi, from the Khyber region, said he was concerned about Obama's threatening tone. "However, if he has a love for peace he should withdraw US forces from Afghanistan. The tribesmen will welcome his gesture," he said. "The United States under George W Bush tried to conquer the world and subjugate the Muslims in the name of terrorism but this will not establish peace. "Afghans and Pashtuns are warriors and the US will not achieve anything in this war because people of this region have never accepted foreign domination." Qari Shafiqur Rehman, from the Sipah Sahaba Pakistan, dismissed the US vote outright. "In America, only faces change and not the policies and we should not pin great hopes on the election of Obama as the next US president," he said. "We don't think the new administration will relieve Pakistan from the present political pressures exerted by President Bush."