Defense of Pakistan Council (DPC) chief Maulana Samiul Haq said at a press conference this week that the Pakistan Army would not take any action against the Haqqani network.

According to Dawn News, Haq on Wednesday slammed US President Donald Trump’s recent remarks about Pakistan and said that those he was affiliated with “were still fighting the Americans in Afghanistan”.

In his speech earlier this week, Trump accused Pakistan of providing safe havens to terrorist organizations .

Haq, who is the chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI-S), also issued a call for ‘jihad’ to every section of society.

Dawn news stated that when asked about terrorist attacks being carried out in Pakistan by local actors affiliated with religious groups, Haq claimed that no Pakistani was involved in killing innocent people.

“The West has been defaming jihad, [equating it] with terrorism, but we need to raise a call to jihad and ask each prayer leader in every mosque to preach the importance of jihad, so that our youth is prepared all the time,” he said.

Dawn News quoted him as saying: “We are fighting the Americans in Afghanistan and those who cannot fight are waging jihad with their words and pens; the whole nation needs to rise up to defeat the West.”

At his press conference, the DPC leader reportedly took aim at the recent US policy statement on Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

He alleged that the US was defaming Pakistan for the ills of the Afghan government which, he said, had connived with the CIA and Indian intelligence, killing civilians and security personnel in Pakistan.

However, Dawn News reported that he and other speakers also blamed the government of Pakistan for pursuing a “failed foreign policy’” and demanded that parliament register their protest on the matter.

Flanked by the leaders of other DPC component parties, including Jamaatud Dawa, veteran jihadi leader Fazalur Rehman Khalil and PML-Zia MNA Ijazul Haq, the DPC leader said he did not agree with the recent briefing by the ISPR.

“It is not possible that Pakistan will conduct any operation against the Haqqanis,” he declared, blaming the US for destroying peace in the region and denouncing (former president) Gen Pervez Musharraf for siding with the US ‘for money’.”

“That dictator was a weak man who sided with the US for money and left the whole nation to face terrorism and chaos,” he said.

“We do not want any American money; it is not even justified as they have brought unimaginable woes to the Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said according to Dawn News.

The Defense of Pakistan Council is an umbrella coalition of more than 40 Pakistani Political and Religious parties that advocate conservative policies.