ISLAMABAD: People poured onto Islamabad's streets Monday, chanting “death to America” and demanding holy war at a rally whipped up by right-wing, religious and banned organisations.
It was the latest show of support for Defence of Pakistan, a coalition of around 40 parties chaired by a cleric dubbed the father of the Taliban that include organisations blacklisted at home and abroad as terror groups.
Allah Buksh, a senior police official, said 2,500 attended the demonstration as it got underway, but witnesses estimated the crowd at 3,500 as hundreds of riot police, armed with batons and wearing bullet-proof jackets stood guard.
“Today, we have gathered here to raise a voice of protest against US intervention in Pakistan,” chairman Maulana Sami ul-Haq told AFP.
Also present was member Hamid Gul, who headed Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency during the 1980s US and Pakistani-sponsored war against Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
His membership has helped fuel suspicions that Pakistan's security establishment is backing the coalition as a means of exerting pressure on the weak government and whipping up rhetoric against the unpopular US alliance.
“Our protest is against the possible resumption of Nato supplies, US and Indian occupation and to strengthen the country's defence,” Haq told AFP.
“America wants to break Pakistan into pieces,” he added in reference to a resolution sponsored by three US lawmakers calling for self-determination in Balochistan.
The alliance, which uses Twitter and Facebook to promote its message, was set up after US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border in late November, which saw Pakistan shut its Afghan border to Nato supplies.
“Death to America” and “America deserves one treatment: jihad, jihad”shouted the crowd in a bustling commercial area, an AFP reporter said.
The coalition has already attracted large turnouts at a series of rallies across the country that some see as a build up to contesting Pakistan's next general election, which could be called within months.
The government's 10-year alliance in the US-led “war on terror” and in neighbouring Afghanistan is deeply unpopular in Pakistan.
“For 10 years our rulers as an ally of the United States spilled the blood of this nation. We insisted in the past and say it again now — this is not our war,” Gul told the crowd.
“The Pakistani nation will not allow the resumption of supplies to Nato troops in Afghanistan. If the rulers side with US aggression, the nation will rise against them,” he warned.
Banners denounced US drone strikes, the government's decision to grant India most favoured nation status in a bid to ease trade, and re-opening the Afghan border to Nato convoys.
“Go America Go” and “No to Nato,” screamed out posters.
The government has banned three key members of the alliance from attending the rally.
The capital administration had on Saturday banned the entry of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat president Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, Secretary General Maulana Khalid Dhillon and Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed Ahmad in Islamabad for four days.
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