QUETTA, 3 April 2003 — Tens of thousands of Pakistanis called yesterday for a holy war against Washington and its allies as they protested the US-led military action on Iraq.
The turnout in the rally in the southwestern city of Quetta was between 60,000 and 100,000 — lower than in some other recent protests in the country, even though the right-wing religious parties that called it are in the regional government.
The protesters gathered in a central square and jammed surrounding roads in the Balochistan provincial capital.
They gathered in response to calls from the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance and directed their anger against US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
They chanted “Bush is a dog” and “Blair is a dog” and “Long live Osama (Bin Laden)” and “Long live Saddam (Hussein)”, referring to leaders of the Al-Qaeda network and Iraq.
Participants called for jihad against the United States and its allies and ripped up effigies of Bush and Blair.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami urged people to be ready for a holy war and to become human shields in Iraq.
“Are you ready to become fidayeen (suicide attackers)?” Ahmed asked the crowd, and many hands were raised enthusiastically. “Are you ready to become human shields in Iraq?” Ahmed asked to the same response.
“I am ready to go to Iraq to fight the infidels if someone would arrange for me to go there,” said 21-year-old Ali Gul as he shouted “death to Bush” in chorus with others around him.
A 25-year-old Afghan national, Matiullah, said he was willing to go to Iraq for jihad if he was asked to do so.
Police estimated the number of protesters at 60,000, while AFP reporters put the crowd at up to 100,000.
Earlier, in Pakistan’s first parliamentary reaction to the Iraq war, the Senate, or upper house, passed a unanimous resolution deploring the war and calling for its immediate end.
On Sunday, an MMA-sponsored rally in the northwestern city of Peshawar drew up to 100,000 people, the biggest protest so far in Pakistan since the war started two weeks ago. President Pervez Musharraf has been a strong ally of the United States in its war against terror despite strong opposition from religious groups.
However, he has kept a distance on the Iraq war, with the government saying it deplores the use of military force there. Small rallies against the war have been held daily throughout Pakistan. So far, all the protests have been peaceful.
