ISLAMABAD, 10 August 2003 — Pakistan’s hard-line Islamic groups, locked in a bitter standoff with the pro-military government, said yesterday they would seek a fatwa or religious decree against dispatching Pakistani troops to Iraq.
Pakistan, a key ally in what Washington calls its “war on terror”, has been asked by the United States to send around 10,000 soldiers to Iraq to help secure the postwar peace.
Fazlur Rahman, a central leader of the main anti-US Islamic alliance, said a council of top religious scholars had been set up to issue the fatwa next week.
“A council has been formed to issue a fatwa that serving of Muslim troops under the command of the United States is un-Islamic,” he told a news conference.
“The military rulers have no constitutional, religious and legal right to send troops to Iraq.”
Islamabad, which backed the United States in its war against the Taleban in neighboring Afghanistan, says it has agreed in principle to send troops to Iraq.
