BAGHDAD, Aug 2: Hundreds of jobless Iraqis demonstrated outside the headquarters of the US-led forces in Baghdad on Saturday, demanding that Iraq’s occupiers give them either work or unemployment benefits.

“Jobs, jobs”, “unemployment benefits”, chanted the protesters, who were kept at a distance from the building by a cordon of US troops.

“We’re prepared to stay here as long as it takes to get what we want,” said Jamal Mahmud, a member of the Syndicate of Unemployed, who called the protest.

“We demanded to meet the Americans, but got no response,” he said, adding that he and a handful of other unemployed staged an overnight sit-in without being impeded by US forces despite a night-to-dawn curfew in force in the Iraqi capital.

The protesters said they insisted on being given either jobs or unemployment benefits of 100 dollars a month.

The protest movement began on Tuesday when hundreds of unemployed marched in central Baghdad before staging a sit-in outside coalition headquarters in the former palace of deposed president Saddam Hussein.

Nineteen said they were interrogated by US soldiers on Tuesday night for violating the curfew. —AFP