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Pakistan Islamist Leader Criticizes US Bombing, Demands Expulsion of Americans

Posted on: Monday, 16 January 2006, 21:00 CST

Text of report by Pakistani newspaper Nawa-i-Waqt on 16 January

Amir Hamza, central leader of the Jamaat-ud Dawa [JuD] Pakistan, has termed the martyrdom of 18 people from the US missile attack in Bajaur Agency as an attack on the integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan. He said that the mere summoning of the US ambassador to the foreign office as a mark of protest is not sufficient. He demanded that the massacre of innocent citizens in the name of the operation against Al-Qa'idah should be stopped forthwith and that Americans must be expelled from the country.

In a statement issued yesterday [15 January], he said that innocent women and children, not foreigners, were killed in the US strike. The United States gained the courage to carry out such bombing on innocent civilians due to weak policies pursued by the Pakistani rulers. Pakistan's defence would not have been so weak if the rulers had not played the role of a frontline state in the so- called war against terrorism. He said that the nation should collectively mount pressure on the rulers to review their policies.

Meanwhile, renowned religious scholar Allama Syed Izhar Bokhari has said that the US bombing on Bajaur Agency is not a mistake, but a conspiracy. The nation will not be satisfied by merely lodging a protest; therefore, the government should hold an immediate investigation into the dangerous incident. He said that the United States is sowing seeds of terrorism in the Islamic countries. It is in the nature of the United States that it always harms its benefactors. The designs of US President George Bush are dangerous. The United States wants to act as the world policemen by putting the label of terrorism on the Islamic world.

Source: BBC Monitoring South Asia

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