Pakistanis Protest U.S. Plans for War in Iraq
The protesters, mostly young men, carried banners bearing slogans including "No War for Oil", "Down With Bush", "Stop Killing Muslims" and "Mankind Needs Peace, Not War" through the old garrison city adjoining the capital Islamabad.
The march was one of several antiwar protests in Asia this weekend, following a mass prayer rally in Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya, which drew up to 800,000 people on Sunday, and a gathering of thousands of placard-carrying demonstrators in the Japanese capital of Tokyo on Saturday.
In Rawalpindi, speakers from the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a six-party opposition Islamic alliance which organized the march, denounced what they called an "American crusade" and urged protesters to be ready for jihad, or holy war.
"Al jihad, al jihad", or "holy war, holy war", shouted one speaker at the rally in Rawalpindi's main business district.
Many of the young protesters wore headbands bearing verses from the Qoran to show they were ready for holy war. ----------Second Show of Force--------
The rally was the second show of force this month by Islamic parties against U.S. policy on Iraq.
Last Sunday, about 70,000 Muslims rallied in the port city of Karachi against a war in Iraq in Pakistan's biggest anti-U.S. protest in years.
The Islamists had called for protests of more than a million people, but numbers have fallen far short and previous demonstrations have drawn only a few thousand people countrywide.
The government of Pakistan, an Islamic country that has been a key ally in the U.S.-led war against terror, fears any attack on Iraq will stir unrest among its mainly Muslim population.
It has a key swing vote on the deeply divided UN Security Council as the United States and Britain search for support for a resolution paving the way for war against Iraq.
The government has said it has not decided how to vote and that all options for peace should be explored.