KARACHI - Several thousand Pakistanis Tuesday held protest rallies
across the country lashing out at American demands for action against
Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani militants.
There is growing unease in
Pakistan about US pressure to take on the Haqqani network or face the
consequences, with the military saying it is too over-stretched
fighting local Taliban to open a new front against a US enemy.
Having
accused the network of orchestrating recent attacks on its embassy in
Kabul and a NATO base in Afghanistan, with Pakistani intelligence
involvement, Washington now says it is considering branding the network
a terror group.
Any such move could complicate future efforts to
negotiate a settlement in Afghanistan and, given US claims about
government ties to the network, risk Pakistan being branded a state
sponsor of terror, local analysts warned.
Hundreds of protesters
from the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) held a rally outside the
US consulate general in the port city of Karachi to condemn US threats,
an AFP photographer at the scene said.
The protesters arrived in
trucks, buses and motorbikes and broke through security cordons to
reach the consulate in a well-guarded southern neighbourhood.
Carrying
Pakistani flags, placards and banners inscribed with slogans condemning
the US, the protestors shouted: "We'll sacrifice our lives to save
Pakistan" and "Death to America."
"We warn US not to indulge in
any misadventure with us, or the whole nation will stand united to
defend our country," said Zafar Baloch, a local party leader while
addressing the protestors.
The protesters also burnt US flags before dispersing peacefully, said local police official Abdul Hakeem.
In
other protests, hundreds of tribesmen in Landikotal, a town on the
northwest border with Afghanistan, threatened the United States with
holy war.
Mobilised by religious party Jamaat-e-Islami, the
protestors waved party flags and wore ribbons inscribed with Koranic
verses and dozens of tribesmen armed with assault rifles joined the
throng, an AFP reporter said.
"We announce the holy war against America if they attack Pakistan," Siraj-Ul-Haq, the party's deputy head, told the gathering.
"The
whole nation will wage a jihad against America and will fight against
them shoulder to shoulder with Pakistani armed forces," Haq added.
JI
has no seats in the national assembly, but anti-Americanism is rampant
in the country of 167 million, fuelled by beliefs that Islamist
militancy is a direct result of the US war in Afghanistan.
Although
nothing suggests the United States is considering a cross-border
incursion, Pakistanis fear action from American ground troops.
The
alliance between Pakistan and the United States in the 10-year war in
Afghanistan and against Al-Qaeda hit rock bottom this year in the wake
of the unilateral American raid that killed Osama bin Laden near
Islamabad on May 2.
The Haqqani group was founded by former CIA
asset turned Al-Qaeda ally Jalaluddin Haqqani, who was close to
Pakistan and the US spy agency during the 1980s anti-Soviet resistance,
and its leaders are based in North Waziristan.
Today the United
States depends on Pakistan, largely for shipping the bulk of its
supplies to the 140,000 US-led foreign troops in landlocked
Afghanistan, but also to counter the threat from Islamist militants in
the border areas.
The Taliban took the unusual step Tuesday of
insisting that they, not Pakistan, control the Haqqani network and of
advising Islamabad to stand firm in the face of "America's two-faced
and implacable politics".
"The respected Maulawi Jalaluddin
Haqqani (the group's founder) is (one of the) Islamic Emirate's
honourable and dignified personalities and receives all guidance for
operations from the leader of the Islamic Emirate," they said.
Pakistan was historically the Taliban's closest foreign ally.
But
local analysts appeared optimistic that the row could be papered over,
believing passions were cooling and that the United States would stop
short of blacklisting the Haqqanis as a network.
"They can put
additional pressure on Pakistan like imposing restrictions on economic
assistance but my assessment is that they will not go to that extent,"
said political and security analyst Hasan Askari.
"The crisis
went to its peak and will now come down. Pakistan did not succumb to
pressures and the US will not break diplomatic ties," he said. AFP
