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JI warns of blocking NATO supply route

* JI provincial president says govt should first ensure citizens’ security before boasting of security for NATO convoys

By Daud Khattak

PESHAWAR: The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) on Tuesday warned it will not allow NATO supplies to reach Afghanistan from Peshawar after December 18.

The JI’s warning came just a day after the NWFP cabinet vowed full protection to NATO supply convoys passing through the province to Afghanistan. The JI had already announced a protest march in Peshawar on December 18 to block the logistics for NATO forces in Afghanistan via Pakistan.

JI NWFP President Sirajul Haq said strategy for blocking the supplies to foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan would be announced at the conclusion of the protest march scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday).

Siraj said people from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and several districts of NWFP would join the protest march to show their support for the JI’s demand. He said attacks on the freight terminals on the Ring Road just outside Peshawar were a reaction against the military operation in the Tribal Areas.

He said the NWFP government was facing difficulties in providing security to the people.

Security: “The provincial government should first ensure the citizens’ security and then boast of security for the NATO convoys passing through Peshawar,” he said. Criticising the Awami National Party-led government in the province, the former provincial minister said the champions of Pashtun rights were paving the way for bombing the houses of Pashtuns in Afghanistan by NATO troops by allowing the supplies.

The people who had always championed the cause of Pashtuns were now helping NATO forces bomb the houses of their brethren by foreign troops in Afghanistan, he said. He said the federal government’s ‘apologetic response’ to Indian allegations of Pakistan’s involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attacks proved the government had accepted the charge. Another JI leader Haroonur Rashid, addressing a gathering in the Hayatabad, claimed that 2,500 civilians had been killed in security forces’ operation in Bajaur Agency so far.

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