PESHAWAR, Jan 16: The Jamaat-i-Islami has said that the US-led air attacks on the Damadola village of Bajaur agency will bring about the downfall of the ruling coterie.

Speaking at a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Monday, JI provincial naib amir and MNA from the Bajaur Agency Haroon Rasheed said that the US had not only violated the United Nations charter, but killed children, women and elderly people in missile attacks on three houses in the agency. He said US spy planes had been hovering over Bajaur for many days, but Pakistan authorities didn’t take any notice. On Friday, at 3am, US planes dropped missiles on three houses and killed 18 people, he added.

He said the JI would bring out a protest rally on Friday to condemn the US aggression on tribesmen. He said he himself was an eyewitness to the US-sponsored attack on peaceful civilians of his area. He said Pakistani rulers had been acting like US agents since the missile attacks as they had failed to satisfy the nation about the US aggression into the country. The Islamabad had issued self-contradictory statements on this tragic incident, because no one was in a position to take a clear stand on the issue, he lamented.

Despite a disgusting stand by the government, he said, the JI would not allow any people’s confrontation with the armed forces. He regretted that despite a well-organised army, alien forces had violated the air-space of Pakistan and attacked its people, which was a regrettable act for the rulers.

Morally, he said, the rulers had bankrupted themselves and it was better for them to step down forthwith, otherwise they would be inviting people’s wrath in future. He said a quick response by the nation on a JI protest call showed that the nation was alive and it could face any challenge by the aggressors.

Speaking on the occasion, JI provincial secretary Mushtaq Ahmed Khan said the JI had launched an anti-government drive by taking out countrywide protest rallies on Sunday. He said the rulers had themselves opted for a wrong way, which would end up in the end of present government.

Mr Khan said Gen Musharraf, who claimed that he had saved the Pakistan by siding with the US after 9/11, had yet not condemned the US missiles attacks on Bajaur Agency. Instead, Gen Musharraf had thanked Jhon Kerry for the US support to present government, he added.

He said the US itself had become a sole terrorist power of the world after its occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and now with a missile attack on Pakistan. He said the JI would invite all the anti-US forces to take part its protest rallies on Friday.