"Pakistan will be graveyard of US army"

[Guest guest]

Trouble brewing for Musharraf

Agencies

(Karachi, September 18)

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More than 3,000 people demonstrated here against the United States

and Pakistan on Tuesday in the biggest protest yet against

Islamabad's offer to help Washington fight terrorism.

Religious leaders are orchestrating the campaign against Pakistani co-

operation with the US. They have called for a nationwide "wheel jam"

on Friday, and more than 50 of the nation's most hardline clerics

have met to draw up a campaign of strikes and demonstrations to

oppose an American attack on their Islamic allies in Afghanistan.

They announced that over the next two weeks strikes and protests will

be organised first in Islamabad and Lahore and then across the rest

of the country.

 

About 500 heavily armed police and paramilitary soldiers watched the

loud but peaceful protest near the Binori mosque in downtown Karachi,

which runs a religious school from where many of the Taliban leaders

in Afghanistan graduated years ago. The security forces did not

intervene.

 

Waving banners with slogans criticising the US and Pakistan President

Pervez Musharraf, the protestors warned him not to assist US forces

in an expected attack against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in

Afghanistan. They also warned against opening Pakistan's air space or

military bases to American forces.

 

"America, don't hunt what you can't kill," the demonstrators shouted

in English. "Pakistan will be the graveyard of the US army," they

said.

 

The protestors, from Islamic extremist groups allied with Afghanistan

and militants fighting in Jammu and Kashmir, carried posters of Bin

Laden that portrayed him as a hero.

 

They warned of more attacks in the US by Islamic fundamentalists

willing to become martyrs if US forces attack the Taliban or arrest

Bin Laden.

 

"Until now, only one World Trade Center has been destroyed. But we

will destroy all of America. We will die for Taliban. We will die for

Islam. We will die for Osama,'' the protestors shouted.

 

Pakistani newspapers reported that locals in the frontier provinces

of Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province had begun

mobilising to confront any foreign troops that may arrive in their

areas.

 

Facing this barrage, Musharraf sought to pacify his critics by

holding a meeting with ex-army chiefs. He postponed an address to the

country on Monday, but could speak about the crisis today. The

Pakistan government has deployed elite commandos at nuclear

installations as a security measure.