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.
تبصرے