March 29, 2003	Saturday	Muharram 25, 1424

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TEHRAN, March 28: Thousands of angry and defiant demonstrators across the Middle East protested against the US invasion of Iraq on Friday following Friday prayers during which religious leaders called for a jihad on US troops.

In Iran, hundreds of demonstrators stoned the British embassy, breaking windows in the compound after overturning an empty guard post at the entrance, witnesses said.

They were among tens of thousands who marched at the call of the authorities, shouting “Death to America”, “Death to Israel” and the more uncommonly heard slogan “Death to Britain”.

The demonstration was the biggest so far in Iran against the assault on Iraq and it did not spare Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was blamed for inviting the US and British invasion of his country.

A government statement authorizing the protest said Iran, “despite its opposition to the Baath regime (of President Saddam) cannot remain indifferent to the savage massacre of our Muslim neighbours”.

Hundreds of Iranians also staged a protest around the Sitt Zeinab shrine, near Damascus, calling for an end to the war on Iraq and to the Israeli aggression in the Palestinian territories.

In Dubai, thousands of demonstrators also took to the streets in a rare protest, waving Iraqi flags and chanting “America is the enemy of God!”.

In Bahrain, some 3,000 people joined a rally in Muharraq, one of the islands of the archipelago, which is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

Chanting “Death to America” and “You, Americans, get back to your own country!”, the group marched through town. A few hundred demonstrators broke off toward the military section of the international airport where US troops and equipment are deployed.

Police intervened and calmed the crowd, which dispersed without incident.

In the Jordanian city of Maan around 10,000 marched on the city centre fuelled by calls issued by mosque imams for a jihad against Americans.

Protesters chastised Arab leaders, especially Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, accusing him of being “a US agent” and warned British Prime Minister Tony Blair “Iraq will destroy you completely”.

Portraits of President Saddam and Osama bin Laden were held up and, in an unprecedented move, protesters were heard chanting praise for Syrian President Bashar al Assad for opposing the aggression.

There were no reports of clashes, but security forces fired teargas grenades to prevent a small group of protesters from charging the main police station, residents said.

Protesters also marched in Amman and other Jordanian cities, accusing Arab leaders of “selling Iraq for a few dollars”.

In Cairo, some 15,000 Egyptians marched behind a huge Iraqi flag in a protest organized by Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) and opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Emerging from Al Azhar Mosque, one of the most cherished in the Muslim world, a group of protesters assembled around Muslim Brotherhood leader Maamoun al Hodeiby shouted: “Jihad, Jihad”.

Many held copies of the holy Quran open to the page of the verse that calls for Jihad after some prayer leaders implicitly called on Muslims to stand by Iraq.

“It is the duty of Muslims to support their brethren everywhere,” the imam in Al Nur Mosque, in Cairo’s Abbasiya neighbourhood, said.

Hundreds of anti-riot troops deployed in Cairo’s central Tahreer Square to protect the nearby US embassy, but the protests across town were peaceful.

Calls for jihad also rang out in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, where 60,000 people, according to police, took to the streets after the prayers.

The protesters, whose ranks were quickly swelled by thousands of Palestinians from nearby refugee camps, hailed “the resistance of Iraq’s people against the invaders”.

Tens of thousands of Indian Muslims and Communist Party activists held protests against the US-led invasion of Iraq in towns and cities across the country on Friday.

In New Delhi, nearly 20,000 Muslim protesters, some holding pictures of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and plastic replicas of AK-47 rifles, shouted slogans against US President George Bush.

The imam of Delhi’s Shahi Masjid, Maulana Syed Ahmad Bukhari, slammed Kuwait for supporting the US and British coalition forces.

“The whole world is seeing Kuwait’s hand in the massacre of Iraqi Muslims,” he said.

In a separate demonstration, thousands of workers of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) also gathered in New Delhi.

“We want the US-led coalition forces to immediately withdraw from Iraq. The Indian government should also condemn the war and strongly take up the issue with the United Nations,” said Swadesh Bhattacharya, CPI (ML) politburo member.

He said CPI-ML workers had staged anti-war protests in other Indian cities, including Chennai, Guwahati and Ranchi.

Tens of thousands of pro-communist students in Kolkata boycotted classes to stage a protest march.

Waving red flags, the students held placards reading: “No more blood for oil” and “War-monger Bush, stop. The world needs food, not war.”

Sudip Sengupta, president of the pro-communist Students Federation of India, claimed more than 25 million students from 430 colleges and 13 universities in West Bengal did not attend classes on Friday in protest.

In Lucknow, hundreds of Muslims dragged an effigy of President Bush in the road, chanting: “Murderer of innocent Iraqi Muslims, take this.”—AFP