Egypt's Brotherhood : US must now quit Iraq & Afghanistan

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has called upon the US forces to quit from afghanistan and iraq should rethink its tactics which had only made the "enemy" more aggressive. It is high time for terminating the occupation by the United States and western powers to islamic countries which have long suffered under occupation, said the official spokesman of the Muslim brotherhood dr. Essam Al-Erian. The Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, a conservative organization with links around the Islamic world, and which renounced violence to achieve change in Egypt decades ago, has condemned the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces as an assassination. The muslim brotherhood which formed a party to contest parliamentary elections following the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, said the revolutions sweeping the Middle East proved democracy was at home in the region and foreign occupation was no longer needed.  "With bin Laden's death, one of the reasons for which violence has been practiced in the world has been removed," said Essam Al-Erian.  Erian addressed the Brotherhood's call to US President Barack Obama: "It is time for Obama to pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq and end the occupation of US and Western forces around the world that have for so long harmed Muslim countries. "The revolutions taking place across the Middle East are proof that democracy has a home in the Middle East and we do not need foreign occupation anymore," Erian said. The attacks on New York and Washington were followed by two US-led wars, and US and other Western countries have troops based in Afghanistan.  US soldiers are due to leave Iraq at the end of 2011 under a security pact with Baghdad, while Washington also has forces based in the Gulf.  Other Islamist groups in Egypt, whose thinkers have inspired Islamic movements and activists around the world, have also re-emerged since Mubarak was toppled on Feb 11, including those who once bore arms. Bin Laden's methods were faulted by a sheikh of Al-Gama''a Al-Islamiya, a group of the conservative Salafist school which led an armed rebellion in the 1990s to set up a purist Islamic state in Egypt but which has since renounced such violence. For his part, Tarek Al-Zumar, another leading member of Gama'a, said bin Laden's death could lead to acts of retaliation. However, he said the response could be muted by the Arab revolts against the same autocratic leaders bin Laden had railed against. "Bin Laden will become a symbol of resistance to occupation ..." said Zumar, who spent three decades in jail for his role in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and was released after Mubarak, his successor, was deposed. "The US killing of bin Laden will undoubtedly galvanize reaction and retaliation attempts to resist Western occupation. " But he added: "Peaceful revolts in the Arab and Muslim world will prevent attempts at random violent acts of retaliation. Zumar's brother, Abboud, was a founding member of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, the group behind Sadat's assassination and led by Ayman al-Zawahri, Al-Qaeda''s second in command who is expected to succeed bin Laden. Some individual Salafists said bin Laden''s killing would add to tensions between the Muslim world and the United States.