Protests call for U.S. action, not words<\/p>\n
Agencies, Karachi\/Quetta<\/p>\n
Anger over the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan exploded into
\nviolence on Friday as Muslims worldwide marked their first holy
\nday since Washington opened the military front of its war on
\nterror.<\/p>\n
U.S. symbols such as fast-food restaurants were singled out as
\nMuslim militants in Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia and Malaysia vented
\ntheir fury over five nights of bombs and missiles raining down on
\nAfghanistan.<\/p>\n
Police fired into the air to break up anti-American protests
\non the streets of Karachi on Friday after the government told
\nPakistanis it would not tolerate violent protests against U.S.
\nattacks on neighboring Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Although protests across the country appeared generally muted
\ndespite the weekly Friday prayers providing a crowd for big
\nprotest marches, demonstrations in Pakistan's largest city turned
\nviolent, with cars burned and windows smashed in two restaurants
\nof the U.S. Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food chain.<\/p>\n
Witnesses said shots rang out after police began firing
\nteargas to disperse several thousand protesters. Police said they
\nfired into the air after there were shots fired from the crowds
\naround them. There were no reports of casualties.<\/p>\n
Security was tight at the U.S. consulate and other diplomatic
\noffices as well as at airports, railway stations and the sea
\nport. Police put up huge barricades of containers across roads
\nleading to the U.S. consulate.<\/p>\n
In Quetta, near the Afghan city of Kandahar where the Taliban
\nleadership are based, police took up positions on rooftops and
\narmy trucks were posted by UN buildings to prevent another riot
\nlike that in which UN offices were torched on Monday.<\/p>\n
Armored vehicles and truckloads of helmeted troops patrolled
\nthe city, capital of Baluchistan province. Pick-up trucks mounted
\nwith machinegun and manned by frontier militia drove the streets.<\/p>\n
Around 25,000 people gathered at the Akbar Bugti sports ground
\nto hear anti-U.S. speakers rail against the Afghan raids --
\ninterrupting them with chants of \"Long live Osama\" and \"Death and
\ndestruction to the USA\".<\/p>\n
Pakistan's religious parties issued a joint statement on
\nFriday calling for a nationwide strike next Monday to protest
\nagainst a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.<\/p>\n
\"The nation will not tolerate his unclean feet on our clean
\nland,\" said a statement issued in Islamabad by a dozen heads of
\nreligious parties.<\/p>\n
An estimated 2,000 protesters marched in Islamabad chanting
\nanti-American slogans. Another peaceful protest march was held in
\nnearby Rawalpindi city, police said.<\/p>\n
Islamic radicals' opposition to Musharraf's support for the
\nU.S. boiled over in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan,
\nwhere the Pakistani consulate was stoned by an anti-U.S. mob.<\/p>\n
A crowd of some 3,000, mainly Afghan refugees as well as
\nIranians, demonstrated in the streets of Zahedan, crying \"down
\nwith America\" and burning effigies of US President George W. Bush
\nand the U.S. flag.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, at least ten people were killed and 30 injured when
\na bus ran into a procession of anti-U.S. protesters in
\nsoutheastern Bangladesh on Friday, police said in Chittagong.<\/p>\n
\"The accident occurred when a bus losing control ploughed
\nthrough a procession of protesters at Chakaria 390 km away from
\nDhaka,\" M.A. Gani, additional police superintendent, told
\nReuters.<\/p>\n
Police in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country,
\nfired water cannon when hundreds of protesters set fire to an
\neffigy of Bush outside the U.S. embassy.<\/p>\n
Malaysian police also got tough, firing water cannon at some
\n2,000 demonstrators protesting outside the U.S. embassy.<\/p>\n
Thousands of Indian Muslims spilled on to the streets of major
\ncities on Friday in protests against the U.S.-led airstrikes on
\nAfghanistan, forcing police to use teargas and water cannons to
\ndisperse the violent mobs.<\/p>\n
Spilling out of mosques after Friday prayers, the protesters
\nshouted anti-U.S. slogans and burnt effigies of U.S. President
\nGeorge W. Bush, calling the bombings on Afghanistan an \"act of
\nterrorism\" and the U.S. \"the biggest terrorist\".<\/p>\n
\"Death to America. Death to Israel. Taliban, Taliban, we
\nsalute you,\" some 10,000 Muslims chanted at New Delhi's Mughal-
\nera redstone Jama Masjid, the country's biggest mosque.<\/p>",
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