Resistance to continue, AMSI says

HODEIDAH, Yemen, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The Iraqi resistance movement will go on until the occupation forces leave Iraq, the Association of Muslim Scholars said in response to the U.S.-Iraqi pact.

A majority of the lawmakers present at the Thursday session passed a bilateral agreement with Washington that calls for all U.S. forces to leave the country no later than Dec. 31, 2011.

Muthanna Harith al-Dhari, the spokesman for the dissident Sunni AMSI, said at a news conference in Yemen that his organization was founded as a "cultural and humanitarian project to resist and prevent the occupation through the written, audio-visual media" and would continue in that role until U.S. forces left Iraq, the AMSI said on its Web site.

He said the Iraqi people have come to terms with the agenda of the occupying forces, adding there was little choice but to continue supporting the resistance.

"Even those who participated in the current political process became aware that the occupier does not want to leave," Dhari noted.

The AMSI was established immediately following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 as an anti-occupation movement, staying on the sidelines of the formal political process.