ISLAMABAD, 29 March 2003 — Religious leaders in Friday prayers urged the faithful to prepare for a holy war to defend Iraq against US-led attacks as anti-war protests continued across Pakistan.

“We should revive the spirit of jihad (holy war) to defend Iraqi Muslims against US aggression,” the prayer leader of Islamabad’s main Red Mosque, Mohammad Abdul Aziz, told the gathering of about 2,000 worshippers.

“Muslims do not rely on material and human resources, they always fight against their numerically superior enemy,” he said.

“It gives a peculiar taste and spiritual joy when you chant Allah-o-Akbar (God is great) as enemy jets rain bombs during the war,” said Aziz, who said he had witnessed Afghan mujahedeen fighting against the 1979-89 Soviet occupation. He also called for a boycott of US and British products.

“If we cannot participate in the war, we can join another jihad of boycotting all the American consumer goods.”

Calls to boycott US and British products were echoed in mosques across the country as Muslims observed a day of protest called by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a religious bloc of six political parties which holds 18 percent of seats in the lower house of Parliament.

Prayer leaders also slammed the government’s “reluctance” to categorically condemn the war and declare open support for Iraq. “Pakistan should shut British and American embassies and cut diplomatic ties with the war mongers,” Qari Fayyazur Rehman told a gathering of more than 700 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

“Pakistan should expel the US troops from its bases and FBI (Federal Bureau of Intelligence) agents,” he said.

“Pakistan is pursuing a vague policy on Iraq, which was condemnable,” MMA leader Aslam Saleemi told a gathering of some 1,000 people in the eastern city of Lahore.

“Pakistan should send weapons and troops to defend Iraq,” Saleemi said.

Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali expressed concern over the humanitarian crisis in Iraq and offered aid.

“The military action in Iraq has compounded the problems of the already suffering Iraqi people who have lived under sanctions for over a decade,” he said.

“While the primary responsibility for addressing the immediate and long term needs of the Iraqi people rests with the parties involved in the military conflict, the government of Pakistan, in an expression of solidarity with the people of Iraq, intends to provide assistance for the Iraqi people as soon as possible.”

Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri told reporters after students from Islamabad schools and colleges presented him with an anti-war memorandum.

He said the “government, the opposition and the people of Pakistan all stand united with these children demanding an early end to the war.” In the northern region thousands of people staged anti-war rallies in Gilgit, Chilas, Ghizer and Skardu districts. Witnesses said the marchers chanted anti-US slogans describing US attacks as “international terrorism.”

Meanwhile, in a debate on the war in Iraq in the Senate yesterday, speakers from all sides rejected the US-led war as illegal and unjust. Sen. S.M. Zafar from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) party said the US lost moral ground by starting a “fictitious war” without United Nations’ approval. Zafar, a former law minister, said the war was so uneven that it could only be called “a ruthless military operation rather than a war”.

His party colleague Sanaullah Baloch, however, said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s “internal policies” provided the opportunity for outside military intervention. Shah Ahmed Noorani, the leader of the MMA, said the war was part of a US plan to create a “Greater Israel” for controlling the entire Middle East and its oil resources.

“(US President George W.) Bush has basically started the war on the basis of religion, targeting Muslim countries one by one,” he said.

Noorani said the Iraqi people were fighting a “holy war” against the United States.

“I congratulate them,” he said.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of former Premier Benazir Bhutto, which was keeping clear of the anti-war protests in the country, announced that it would join the protest on Monday.

“We are against the war but kept away from the protest rallies because MMA was using them to eulogize Osama Bin Laden,” Sen. Farhatullah Babar of the party said.