Pakistani media has reported that leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), an Islamist group close to the global Muslim Brotherhood, has called on all Pakistanis to unite against India in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks. According to the report:
Pakistan Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the Chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, has asked the government of Pakistan to change its policy against terrorism, pull out all security forces from the western border with Afghanistan, and deploy them on the Indian border. Accusing India of continuously blaming Pakistan for the Mumbai terror attacks, he asked all Pakistanis to unite against India.
The JEI was founded in 1941 and is Pakistan’s oldest religious party. The party had it’s origins in the thoughts of Maulana Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi (1903-79), the most important Islamist intellectual in the history of Southeast Asia. Maududi was also a major influence on the global Muslim Brotherhood with whom the JEI has long enjoyed close relations. In the United States, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is generally considered to represent the JEI.
A previous post discussed remarks by Ahmad accusing the West of being the “real terrorists.”
For background on JEI go here.