KARACHI, March 17: Leaders of various political, religious and other parties have reacted strongly to the massive US air offensive, biggest since 2003, in Iraq on Thursday, and observed that it was aimed against innocent Iraqis.
This uncalled for operation is a manifestation of the failure of US policies viz-a-viz Iraq where, despite having military might, the US lost the war.
The US forces, they observed, were now left with no option but to withdraw from Iraq, as well as from Afghanistan.
Naib Amir of Jamaat-i-Islami Prof Ghafoor Ahmad recalled that President Bush and his former secretary of state Colin Powel had acknowledged that they had found no weapons of mass destruction in that country. The justification given by the US to defend the Iraq invasion had stood invalid, he said, adding that the fresh massive operation on Iraqi soil appeared yet another act of terrorism by the occupation forces which deserved condemnation from all peace-loving people and civilized world.
Washington, while preaching respect for humanity and calling for moderation in attitudes, demonstrates its unbridled power by unleashing aggression against its opponent countries around the world. This is the double-facet policy pursued by the White House.
Secretary-General of the Sindh PML-N and a former governor Mamnoon Hussain said that after failing to pit Sunni and Shia population of Iraq against each other, the US had resorted to launching the massive operation against innocent Iraqis to eliminate unarmed men, women and children.
He expressed astonishment over the justification given by the US for launching the operation, that the operation had been prompted by the information regarding presence of Al-Qaeda operatives in that area, arguing that that the US had satellites and other most modern gadgets at its disposal to locate the so-called ‘insurgents’. In such a situation, the pretext did not justify the air assault.
Mr Hussain said it would be in the interest of the US itself to withdraw from Iraq sooner the better.
Leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmad Khuhro said that the fresh US operation in Iraq indicated that Washington’s efforts to put down resistance in that country were not a success story. In view of the continuing struggle against the occupation forces by people of Iraq, the US should now think about a total withdrawal so that the people of Iraq could have self-rule.
Prominent politician Mairaj Mohammad Khan said that after suffering a military and moral defeat in Iraq, where more than 100,000 people had so far been killed, the US was now plotting to pit Shias and Sunnis against each other so that the country was disintegrated after withdrawal of foreign forces.
Mr Khan said that Samarra was another target of US forces to show their military might in order to overawe those who had rejected the puppet government in Baghdad, which had no role to play in containing the situation. He said that after failing to overcome the defiance by people, the US was had again turned its guns towards Iran and Syria.
President of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan Sahibzada Anas Noorani Siddiqui, condemning the US air assault, regretted that the OIC and rulers of Muslim countries had failed to stop the US from killing innocent Muslims in Iraq despite the fact that the US claim of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction had proved wrong.
He described the fresh US operation as uncalled for, and observed that the resistance being posed by oppressed people was a natural reaction to the atrocities being meted out to them by the occupation forces and their allies. He also slammed the attitude of the so-called civilized world, OIC and UN Security Council for their silence over the US aggression.
Qari Mohammad Usman of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F said that the US operation in Samarra had proved that the US was not only oppressor, but also terrorist which had first unleashed aggression in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq. And now, he added, it was threatening Iran.
The entire civilized world and peace-loving people should raise their voice against the US aggression, he added.
Nasir Mansoor of the Pakistan Labour Party said that the launching of another massive operation in Iraq on the eve of the third anniversary of the invasion, was aimed at showing the world that no power on the earth could stop the US forces from carrying out bloodshed and destruction on a large scale.
