Pakistan’s religious parties Thursday defied President Pervez Musharraf and refused to attend the first meeting of the National Security Council. Musharraf had called the meeting to consider the current security situation, saying religious extremists posed a great threat to Pakistan’s stability. A seven-party religious alliance, which is also the second largest group in the Pakistani parliament, rejected Musharraf’s agenda, saying there was no such threat in Pakistan.
| "Nope. Nope. Never happened." |
Qazi Hussain Ahmad, a key leader of the alliance, claimed Musharraf was targeting "good, peaceful Muslims" in the country’s tribal areas to please Washington.
| You can tell they're "good, peaceful Muslims" by the corpse counts... |
Musharraf rejected the allegation and said it was in Pakistan’s interests to fight al-Qaida and Taliban suspects hiding in a tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. The alliance not only boycotted the meeting, it also the prevented chief minister from the northwest frontier province from attending. The alliance controls the government in this key province, which borders Afghanistan. "I take a strong exception to the chief minister’s absence," said Musharraf who also urged the alliance to stop supporting extremists. |