THE US ambassador has been summoned and Islamic groups have held rallies in major cities across Pakistan after Donald Trump lashed out at the country over its alleged support for extremists.
In a New Year’s Day tweet, the US president said his country had “foolishly” given Pakistan more than $33 billion (£24bn) in aid and had received nothing in return but “lies & deceit”, adding that Pakistan gives “safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan”.
Hundreds of supporters of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa group chanted against Trump at a rally in Lahore and called for the US ambassador to be expelled.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa is headed by Hafiz Saeed, the founder of a militant group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, who lives openly in Pakistan despite a $10 million (£7m) reward offered by the State Department.
Meanwhile, Trump also appeared to take credit on social media for a lack of commercial airline fatalities in 2017.
The US president tweeted that since taking office “I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news – it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!”
There were no commercial airline fatalities in the world in 2017, and airline deaths have been dropping globally for more than a decade.
The last commercial airline fatalities in the US happened in July 2013.
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