MUZAFFARABAD, 14 March 2003 — Around 500 activists of a religious party took to the streets in the capital of Azad Kashmir yesterday to protest US plans to invade Iraq.
Protesters praised efforts by France, Germany, Russia and China to stop the possible attack, and urged the United Nations Security Council to prevent military action against Iraq.
They used sticks to beat burning effigies of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“The international community should take collective measures to rid the world of America’s anti-humanity policies,” said Mahmoodul Hassan Ashraf, a local leader of the hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) party.
The procession was led by the JUI, which campaigned fervently against the US-led bombardment of Afghanistan in late 2001 which sought to crush the Taleban regime and their Al-Qaeda terror network allies.
Pakistan is unlikely to use its rotating position on the 15-member Security Council to back any second resolution authorizing war. Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali has said it would be “very difficult” for his government to support military action against Iraq. In a televised speech on Tuesday he called on the UN to give Iraq more time to disarm.
Also in Muzaffarabad, a key Kashmiri group yesterday condemned the deadly bus blast in the Indian-controlled zone of the disputed region, and blamed Indian agencies for the “cowardly act.”
At least four people were killed and around two dozens injured when a bomb ripped through a bus in southern Indian Kashmir. The blast occurred late morning in a parked bus at the central terminus in the town of Rajouri.
“Let it be clear that attacks on the unarmed civilians or bomb blasts in buses and markets is not the work of the Mujahedeen,” Salim Hashmi, spokesman for the Hizbul Mujahedeen group, told AFP.
Hizb said it did not believe in attacking civilians. “This is a cowardly act and we strongly condemn it,” Hashmi said.
