Brotherhood: U.S. troops should now quit Iraq, Afghan

Brotherhood: U.S. troops should now quit Iraq, Afghan | Reuters

CAIRO | Mon May 2, 2011 3:32am EDT

(Reuters) - Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said on Monday that U.S. soldiers should be withdrawn fromAfghanistan and Iraq after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks that led to two U.S.-led wars.

Al Qaeda leader was killed in a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan on Sunday, U.S. President Barack Obama said.

"With Bin Laden's death, one of the reasons for which violence has been practiced in the world has been removed," Essam al-Erian, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's governing body, told Reuters.

"It is time for Obama to pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq and end the occupation of U.S. and Western forces around the world that have for so long harmed Muslim countries," he said.

U.S. and other Western countries have troops based in Afghanistan. U.S. soldiers are due to leave Iraq at the end of 2011 under a security pact with Baghdad. Washington also has forces based in the Gulf.