LAHORE, Oct 9: Jamaat-i-Islami’s district office-bearers were directed on Tuesday to intensify their protest programmes in their respective areas.

Speaking at a meeting of the office-bearers at Mansoora, JI’s Punjab Amir Hafiz Muhammad Idrees said that Pervez Musharraf had misunderstood that people were with him.

Ordinary citizens were carrying pictures of Osama bin Laden across the country, challenging Musharraf to test the popularity of his decision, he said.

Terming the US leaders coward who had taken refuge at secret bunkers for fear of the Taliban, he said the American attacks were killing the innocent citizens in Afghanistan but they were in high spirits there.

Condemning Pervez Musharraf for his ‘more loyal than the king’ attitude, Hafiz Idrees said the general had swapped the national honour for a few dollars, humiliating the whole nation.

Justifying the decree of jihad against America, he said Mullah Omar and Osama were not the real target of the Americans, adding Pakistan’s nuclear programme and Islam were the actual target of these forces.

Meanwhile, Jamaat’s central deputy secretary-general Fareed Ahmad Piracha said it was an embarrassment for the US that it could not achieve its target despite a rain of cruise missiles and carpet bombing by 40 planes.

Referring to America and its allies as international terrorists, he said that they had murdered innocent citizens through their cold-blooded bombing of Afghanistan.

He said that it was time for American people and intellectuals to press their government to desist from shedding blood of civilians and ponder upon the causes which had rendered it insecure in the world.

Mr Piracha said America had become a symbol of hatred among the third world owing to its patronage of state terrorism by Israel and India.

He appealed to the peace-loving people across the world to hold demonstration against the launching of the third world war by America.