ISLAMABAD, March 23: The Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman, Imran Khan, has condemned the US invasion of Iraq.

In a press release issued here, he said the barbaric bombings of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities showed that the super hawks of the US administration were determined to commit crimes against humanity only to protect Zionist interests in the Mideast.

He said the US invasion of Iraq was motivated by the desire of the Zionist lobby and the hawks inside the US administration to redraw the map of the Mideast and colonize the Muslim world.

The PTI chief said the indiscriminate booming of Iraq was a war crime. The US invasion of Iraq could lead to a wider conflict, he added.

He said, in its maddening rush to war and world domination, the US had made the UN irrelevant. The attack on Iraq was a brazen act of state terrorism and must be condemned, he added.

He said the OIC resolution condemning war on Iraq was meaningless as long as its member countries allow US base inside Iraq.

All those countries providing military bases to the US must be suspended from the membership of OIC, he said.

Mr Khan criticized the rulers of Islamic countries and termed it shameful. “The time has come for the people of the Muslim countries to rise against their rulers who were mere stooges of the US and act as their mercenaries just to perpetuate their decadent rule,” he added.