November 24, 2008	Monday	Ziqa'ad 25, 1429

PESHAWAR, Nov 23: Jamaat-i-Islami Chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad has warned the United States that if drone attacks in tribal areas are not stopped his party will cut off the main supply route for Nato forces in Afghanistan.

“People will block routes from Karachi to Torkham to stop supplies for foreign forces in Afghanistan,” Qazi Hussain said at a tribal jirga held at the party’s provincial secretariat here on Sunday.

He urged the government to change the previous regime’s policy and stop cooperating with the US in the war on terror.

“If the government does not withdraw support for the US and continues to provide logistic facilities for foreign forces in Afghanistan, our party will march on Islamabad,” he warned.

He defended the presence of foreign militants in tribal areas and said that Arabs, Uzbeks and other Muslims living in Pakistan were “our brethren and Al Qaeda and Taliban are not against Pakistan and its nuclear programme.

“They (foreign militants) are not against Pakistan. They are fighting against the United States which has occupied Afghanistan, Iraq and supports Israeli occupation of Palestine,” he said, claiming that all Arabs and Uzbeks were fighting for Islam.

He said the US was not prepared to tolerate the existence of any Muslim state in the world.

He said that Muslims had not occupied any US territory. They were only defending their own lands and belief. All Muslim resistance forces, he said, had the right to defend themselves.

Criticising the military operation in Swat and tribal areas, the Jamaat chief said that thousands of families had been displaced because of the use of force by the army.

The JI chief said that attacks on security forces and suicide bombings were a reaction to government’s policies.

He said these policies which served the interests of the United States must be changed.