Tens of thousands of Islamic party activists have rallied in this southern port city of Karachi in Pakistan's biggest protest so far against a possible US attack on Iraq(Syed Zargham/Getty Images)...

Mon, Mar 3 2003 7:16 AM AEDT

Islamists stage massive anti-war rally in Pakistan

Tens of thousands of Islamic party activists have rallied in this southern port city of Karachi in Pakistan's biggest protest so far against a possible US attack on Iraq.

Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil estimated the crowd at more than 100,000 while a spokesman for the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which had vowed to bring one million people on to the streets, claimed half a million had already thronged the city's main boulevard.

Protestors carried portraits of Al Qaeda terror network chief Osama bin Laden, chanted "Jihad" (holy war) and "no blood for oil" and burnt effigies of US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Snaking two kilometres through the city centre, it was the biggest demonstration witnessed in Karachi since the US-led war that ousted the fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001.

The participants, including a large number of women, shouted "the world says No to war" and "drop Bush, not bombs".

Police have beefed up security by barricading roads, especially around the US consulate, where two police guards were shot dead by a lone assailant on Friday local time, and other diplomatic missions.

The MMA is an alliance of six fundamentalist parties including pro-Taliban groups, who are bitterly opposed to the US-led military operations that ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.

Earlier, Pakistani tribesmen at an anti-US rally in the MMA-ruled North West Frontier Province (NWFP) threatened to target American interests if Iraq was invaded.

The rally in Jamrud town, some 10 kilometres west of the provincial capital Peshawar, was attended by about 3,500 ethnic Pashtuns living in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, organisers said.

The participants, some armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, torched a US flag and chanted slogans against war on Iraq.

"If Americans attacked Iraq, we would be free to target America at any place," Malik Ismail, an elder of local Torkhel tribe told the gathering.

"Iraq is the second important place for Muslims after Mecca," march organiser Hafiz Abdul Malik said, claiming Muslims would wage a Jihad against the US if it attacked Iraq.

About 100 members from Pakistan's minority Christian community also staged a rally in Peshawar on Sunday local time, calling on the US to resolve the Iraq crisis through dialogue.

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