A CAMPAIGN to end the bombing in Afghanistan has been launched in Wanstead.

Up to 100 people turned out for a public meeting in Grove Hall on Friday entitled Redbridge Against the War.

The meeting was chaired by Cllr Greg Eglin from South Woodford and featured speakers including Ashley Gunstock from Redbridge's Green Party, Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, Anne Black from Labour's NEC and Helen Sammon from the Stop the War Coalition.

Cllr Eglin said: "There was widespread support from political and religious groups to stop the war. Everybody denounced the September 11 attacks. The perpetrators need to be brought to justice. But bombing will make matters worse.

"The main issue discussed was the morality of the richest country in the world bombing one of the poorest countries, particularly with cluster bombs.

"Following the September 11 attacks America was on the moral high ground. They would have been in the position to get Osama Bin Laden but as soon as the first Afghan was killed the moral high ground evaporated."

Speakers at the conference suggested that if economic sanctions on Iraq were lifted, it would dry up the supply of recruits to terrorist groups like the al-Qaida network, which is believed to have been responsible for the plane crash attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon that killed over 4,500 people.

Cllr Eglin said: "If we remove sanctions on Iraq we remove the breeding ground for terrorists."

Conservative leader and Woodford Green MP Iain Duncan Smith believes that the action being taken is justified.

He told the Guardian: "We must not forget that among the thousands of people tragically killed on that dreadful day, hundreds were British citizens. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan harbours and protects those terrorists.

"Those who say we should use judicial means to deal with Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida fail to accept that it is not possible because the Taliban refuse to hand him over. In Iraq, people are suffering because of Saddam Hussein's repressive regime, not because of the sanctions.

"People must never underestimate the brutality of both the Iraqi regime and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Without military action they will not hesitate to destroy the lives of many more innocent people."

By.Susana Mendona