Protests call for U.S. action, not words

Protests call for U.S. action, not words

Agencies, Karachi/Quetta

Anger over the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan exploded into violence on Friday as Muslims worldwide marked their first holy day since Washington opened the military front of its war on terror.

U.S. symbols such as fast-food restaurants were singled out as Muslim militants in Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia and Malaysia vented their fury over five nights of bombs and missiles raining down on Afghanistan.

Police fired into the air to break up anti-American protests on the streets of Karachi on Friday after the government told Pakistanis it would not tolerate violent protests against U.S. attacks on neighboring Afghanistan.

Although protests across the country appeared generally muted despite the weekly Friday prayers providing a crowd for big protest marches, demonstrations in Pakistan's largest city turned violent, with cars burned and windows smashed in two restaurants of the U.S. Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food chain.

Witnesses said shots rang out after police began firing teargas to disperse several thousand protesters. Police said they fired into the air after there were shots fired from the crowds around them. There were no reports of casualties.

Security was tight at the U.S. consulate and other diplomatic offices as well as at airports, railway stations and the sea port. Police put up huge barricades of containers across roads leading to the U.S. consulate.

In Quetta, near the Afghan city of Kandahar where the Taliban leadership are based, police took up positions on rooftops and army trucks were posted by UN buildings to prevent another riot like that in which UN offices were torched on Monday.

Armored vehicles and truckloads of helmeted troops patrolled the city, capital of Baluchistan province. Pick-up trucks mounted with machinegun and manned by frontier militia drove the streets.

Around 25,000 people gathered at the Akbar Bugti sports ground to hear anti-U.S. speakers rail against the Afghan raids -- interrupting them with chants of "Long live Osama" and "Death and destruction to the USA".

Pakistan's religious parties issued a joint statement on Friday calling for a nationwide strike next Monday to protest against a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"The nation will not tolerate his unclean feet on our clean land," said a statement issued in Islamabad by a dozen heads of religious parties.

An estimated 2,000 protesters marched in Islamabad chanting anti-American slogans. Another peaceful protest march was held in nearby Rawalpindi city, police said.

Islamic radicals' opposition to Musharraf's support for the U.S. boiled over in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan, where the Pakistani consulate was stoned by an anti-U.S. mob.

A crowd of some 3,000, mainly Afghan refugees as well as Iranians, demonstrated in the streets of Zahedan, crying "down with America" and burning effigies of US President George W. Bush and the U.S. flag.

Meanwhile, at least ten people were killed and 30 injured when a bus ran into a procession of anti-U.S. protesters in southeastern Bangladesh on Friday, police said in Chittagong.

"The accident occurred when a bus losing control ploughed through a procession of protesters at Chakaria 390 km away from Dhaka," M.A. Gani, additional police superintendent, told Reuters.

Police in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, fired water cannon when hundreds of protesters set fire to an effigy of Bush outside the U.S. embassy.

Malaysian police also got tough, firing water cannon at some 2,000 demonstrators protesting outside the U.S. embassy.

Thousands of Indian Muslims spilled on to the streets of major cities on Friday in protests against the U.S.-led airstrikes on Afghanistan, forcing police to use teargas and water cannons to disperse the violent mobs.

Spilling out of mosques after Friday prayers, the protesters shouted anti-U.S. slogans and burnt effigies of U.S. President George W. Bush, calling the bombings on Afghanistan an "act of terrorism" and the U.S. "the biggest terrorist".

"Death to America. Death to Israel. Taliban, Taliban, we salute you," some 10,000 Muslims chanted at New Delhi's Mughal- era redstone Jama Masjid, the country's biggest mosque.