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Bodies Of Dead "Jihad" Fighters Returned to Pakistan After Protests
ISLAMABAD, Oct 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The bodies of eight Pakistani fighters killed in a U.S. bombing raid in Kabul were brought back to Pakistan on Wednesday, defusing protests over the authorities' refusal to accept them back, news agencies reported.
Pakistan earlier had refused to accept the bodies of the "Jihad" fighters killed in a U.S. bombing raid on Kabul, officials said in a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Several thousand demonstrators clashed with security forces in Karachi to demand that the eight be given funerals in Pakistan.
Protesters ended a sit-in rally in Karachi on Wednesday night after being told the bodies had been brought across the border.
The bodies were at first rejected at the Torkham crossing point in North West Frontier province, but were later brought back without government approval across a remote frontier trail in the Mehmand Tribal Agency bordering Afghanistan, officials there said.
Two of the eight were buried almost immediately in the province; two others were sent to Kashmir and two to Punjab province. The final pair were to be buried after being identified.
The eight were among 35 members of the hardline Harakat ul-Mujahedin group who were reported killed when the house they were staying in south of Kabul was hit in a U.S. bombing attack on Monday.
Harakat, which has been named by the United States as a "terrorist group", is one of more than a dozen Islamic groups fighting to oust Indian forces from the disputed state of Kashmir.
Reports say several thousand Pakistanis, many of them youths from Islamic seminaries, have answered the Taliban's call for a "Jihad" (struggle) against the United States.
"We had instructions from higher authorities not to receive the bodies," said Bakhtiar Khan, an official at the Torkham crossing point in North West Frontier province.
"They were the Pakistanis who were killed when a bomb hit a house in Darul Aman in Kabul," he told AFP.
Mufti Jamil, a scholar and senior official in Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) (Islamic scholars committee) political party, said the men belonged to Harakat and were in Kabul when they were killed during a U.S. bombing raid.
The bomb landed on a house in Darul Aman, to the south of Kabul.
Jamil said the house was not near any military installations but residents reported that a Taliban base in the area was attacked during air strikes on Monday and Tuesday.
The base was a known center for foreign, mostly Arab, fighters who have made common cause with the Taliban, according to locals.
"They were involved in jihad and they are martyrs," Jamil told AFP. "I strongly condemn the decision as they were not Afghans, but Pakistanis and should be buried here."
Jamil said 22 of the men killed came from Karachi and protests against the rejection of the bodies were expected in Pakistan's largest city where police and paramilitaries were deployed on the streets.
The JUI said the move was part of the Pakistan government's pro-U.S. policy.
Pakistan is a strong ally to the U.S. in its war against Afghanistan since it offered it military bases and the use of its air space and secret information about Taliban beside the logistic support which all triggered protest from the Pakistani street against the government.
Pakistan was rewarded as the World Bank approved a $300 million loan for Pakistan to help privatize and restructure the banking sector, a spokesman for the bank said Tuesday.
"Thousands of mujahidin [fighters] from Pakistan are fighting side by side with Taliban against America and more will join them," Jamil said.
Experts said letting in the bodies would have risked serious anti-U.S. and anti-government demonstrations at the funerals.
Earlier, on September 19, Pakistan's senior religious body issued a fatwa (Islamic ruling) calling for a struggle against the United States and its allies if they attack Afghanistan.
"The Pakistan Ulema [scholars] Council has called for a jihad against America and its allies if they attack Afghanistan. The [U.S.] attack will be an act of terrorism," the council said in the
fatwa sent to AFP.
"It is the duty of all the Muslims in the world to protect Muslim countries and Muslims, and the people of Pakistan and the Ulema will not let America destroy the interests and identity of Pakistan and Afghanistan," the
fatwa said.
"We warn President Musharraf to keep in mind the sentiments of the people of Pakistan before taking any action in support of America," the Ulema statement said.
Meanwhile, Harakat gave an initially cautious response to the Pakistani refusal of returning the fighters bodies. A Harakat leader in Karachi, Iftikhar Ahmed, said the central leadership was deciding what protest to make.
Harakat has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on Indian troops in Kashmir, but has denied involvement in "terrorist" activity.
Harakat's accounts were frozen by the central State Bank of Pakistan on September 24, three days after U.S. President George W. Bush said the organization was on a list of 27 individuals or groups linked to terrorism.
According to U.S. estimates, Harakat has several thousand armed supporters in its ranks, mostly Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Afghans and Arab veterans of the Afghan conflict with Soviet invaders between 1979 and 1989.
Harakat last month vowed to intensify its fight against India after Pakistan froze its bank accounts.
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