MULTAN, April 5: The anti-US ‘Long March’ convoy of the Jamaat Ahle Sunnat under the leadership of its central Amir Prof Mazhar Saeed Kazmi arrived here on Saturday.

The ‘Long March’ which had started its journey towards Karachi from Rawalpindi on April 3 last is scheduled to reach the port city on April 6.

In Multan, hundreds of Jamaat activists welcomed the leaders and participants of the convoy at busy Kumharanwala chowk. Later, the gathering took the form of a protest rally against the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.

The processionists shouted slogans against US president Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair and also burnt their effigies. They also condemned the weak stand of the Musharraf regime on war in Iraq.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Kazmi said the nuclear capability had not only made the defence of Pakistan strong but it also provided the much-needed safeguard to the Muslim world. He, however, regretted that General Musharraf had betrayed the Ummat by taking side with America.

He lamented that the US fighter planes were using the airports of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey to carry out bombardment in Iraq.

He said the US claimed that the invasion was to liberate Iraqi people from the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein, but the allied forces were killing innocent civilians, including women and children. He urged the Muslims to get themselves united to face the challenge posed to them by American ‘crusade’.