ISLAMABAD Feb 1: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s supreme council is likely to meet ahead of the National Assembly session beginning on Feb 6 to settle issues which are threatening to tear the alliance apart.

Talking to journalists on Thursday after presiding over an ulema’s convention, MMA president Qazi Hussain Ahmed said the council would decide whether its legislators should attend the NA session.

He refrained from commenting on the earlier decision of the council to resign from the lower house in protest against the women’s rights bill.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed and MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rahman are sharply divided on a number of issues, including resigning from the lower house and launching a sweeping movement against the government.

It is not clear whether the Maulana will be able to attend the supreme council meeting as he underwent angioplasty in a Lahore hospital on Thursday.

Before the supreme council meeting, the heads of the parties in the alliance may meet separately to create consensus on most contentious issues, including re-election of Qazi Hussain Ahmed as the MMA president and decision on other alliance offices.

Speaking at the ulema’s convention organised by the Jamaat-i-Islami, the MMA president warned the rulers against demolishing mosques and seminaries in the federal capital, saying that the nation would come out on the roads if the move was not stopped. He asked ulema to preach Islam by coming out of mosques and seminaries.

He claimed that the ulema had full support of the nation if they decided to unite the masses against the government’s actions aimed at liberalising and modernising Islam to please the West.

He said the United States, which was unsupportive of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, was helping India in the same field.

He alleged that Iraq had been divided into three regions on ethnic basis by the US.

He said the American Congress has passed a law under which the US president would issue a certificate about Pakistan’s services in the war on terrorism before it got any financial or military assistance.