CASABLANCA, March 2: Thousands of Moroccans took to the streets on Sunday for the second time in a week to protest at US threats to wage war on Iraq.

“We are all Iraqis,” was the slogan on armbands worn by most of the protestors, who carried banners denouncing the policies of US President George W. Bush as they marched through the centre of Morocco’s biggest city Casablanca.

The demonstrators also chanted slogans attacking what they saw as the fearful reaction of Arab countries to US preparations for war.

The protest in this Atlantic port city of some four million people was organised by the National Iraqi Support Committee, an umbrella group of political and union movements.

The protest was “a message to George Bush to tell him not to go to war with Iraq because such a war would be a war on all Arabs,” Khalid Soufiani, one of the organisers of the march, told AFP.

Many of the marchers were from militant Islamic organisations such as Al Adl Wal Ihssane or were supporters of the main political opposition, the Justice and Development Party.—AFP