Pakistan

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>]

< http://www.satp.org/news/newsmain.htm#3 >
Pakistan: Sipah-e-Sahaba warns government against cooperating with US

The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), at a meeting in Peshawar, on
September 16, said Muslims of Pakistan would not tolerate any
assistance by the Federal government to the USA in its possible
attacks on the Taliban regime. While declaring the US as the 'biggest
criminal in the world', SSP leaders alleged that the terrorist acts in
New York and Washington DC were a conspiracy to defame Islam.

Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman
said, in an interview, that any assistance rendered by Pakistan to the
US Administration would embroil the country in an 'intense internal
turmoil' and Pakistan would lose its sovereignty as also its respect.
According to him, "The three options spelt out by President General
Pervez Musharraf at his meeting with politicians on Sunday [September
16, 2001] night are not acceptable to us despite having consensus over
the supreme national interest." However, he did not disclose the three
options, indicating that politicians were asked not to reveal them to
anybody.

Separately, Pakistani news reports indicated that several tribesmen in
the tribal and border areas of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP)
and Baluchistan have been mobilising their resources and populace to
violently confront any external force that launches a military action
against the Taliban regime. Reports quoting intelligence and
paramilitary sources indicated that religious fervour has gripped the
people in areas such as Dir, Bajore, Kohat, Bannu, Teri Mengal,
Parachinar, and in other agencies of the NWFP. People have been seen
pooling their arsenal with repeated calls from the mosques that people
be ready to raise arms against a foreign army.

Pakistan: Religious parties give strike call for September 21

The Council for Defence of Pakistan and Afghanistan (CDPA), a group of
over 20 religious parties, called a country-wide strike on September
21, 2001 to protest what it perceives as the US' efforts to implicate
the Taliban and Osama bin Laden in the September 11-terrorist attacks
in the US. In a statement released on September 17, the CDPA said,
"The council considers an attack on Afghanistan as an attack on
Pakistan and it will respond positively to the Jehad call given by the
Afghan government."