Many Muslims protest the US strikes in Afghanistan
Tensions in Muslim World Mount Over U.S.-Led Strikes
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Police in Pakistan battled thousands of frenzied
anti-U.S. demonstrators as calls for a holy war against the United States
echoed throughout the Muslim world following the U.S.-led strikes on
Afghanistan .
While the United States and its allies were at pains to reassure the Islamic
world that President Bush's war on terrorism was not
anti-Muslim, hard-liners from Europe to the Middle East to Asia appeared to
be gearing up for a fight.
In the western Pakistani city of Quetta, thousands of marchers shouting
``Death to America'' torched an office of the United Nations Children's Fund, two cinemas, shops, a bank, cars and an office of Pakistan's Central Investigations Agency.
Protesters brandishing pictures of Osama bin Laden the
man blamed for masterminding last month's kamikaze attacks on the United
States, paraded through several other Pakistani cities.
In Egypt, more than 20,000 students demonstrated against the strikes launched Sunday in reprisal for
the suicide hijackings that killed thousands of people in New York and Washington.
``U.S. go to hell, Afghanis will prevail,'' students cried at Alexandria University.
In India , which has one of the world's biggest Muslim populations, the head of India's biggest mosque
said he would call on the country's 120 million Muslims to provide moral support for a jihad, or holy
war, against the United States.
``I am not talking about arming and sending Indian Muslims to fight. Just our moral support,'' Syed
Ahmed Bukhari, chief cleric of the Jama Mosque in New Delhi, told Reuters.
In India's Muslim-majority state of Kashmir , hundreds of demonstrators protested
against the strikes, shouting: ``The superpower is Allah. Afghan warriors -- we are with you.''
REASON FOR ATTACKS
``There have been attacks and violence for years in the Arab and Muslim world as a result of the U.S.
so there was a reason this (the attacks on the U.S.) happened,'' said an angry young Sudanese at a
mosque in Paris. ``If there is a war, I'm ready.''
Islamic support is crucial to the success of the U.S. war on terrorism as Afghanistan is surrounded
mainly by Muslim countries, analysts say.
``The United States should know without Islamic support, the obstacles will be dangerous,'' said Saudi
Arabia's al-Riyadh newspaper. ``(It) should be aware of how entwined its position and interests are
with the Islamic world in times of war and peace.''
In military-ruled Pakistan, viewed as Washington's most vital -- and shakiest ally -- President Pervez
Musharraf said he was sure Pakistani authorities could contain the protests.
About eight km (five miles) from the Afghan border, Pakistani militia opened fire on about 8,000
Pushtun tribesmen who burned an effigy of Bush. Three protesters were injured.
In the Pakistan capital of Islamabad, United Nations staff were asked to stay home and about 1,000
protesters, some armed with sticks and swords, marched to the American Center.
Musharraf has thrown his weight behind the United States but has to contend with fundamentalist
clerics, many of whom have endorsed the Taliban's formula for a pure Islamic
state.
In Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, a small but
strident radical Islamic group threatened to hunt down foreigners and destroy
foreign targets as embassies there warned their nationals to stay indoors.
Other minority radical groups threatened a holy war against Americans.
Indonesia's secular government, seeking to tread a fine line between
supporting Washington and not alienating Muslim hard-liners, said it was
following the U.S.-led strikes with ``deep concern'' and said civilian casualties should be avoided.
DECRIED STRIKES
In mostly Muslim Malaysia, whose government is a fierce critic of the West, both Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad and the opposition decried the strikes, saying innocents would die.
But there were no reports of trouble.
Mahathir, who has backed Washington's war on terrorism but not an attack on Afghanistan, said the
strikes could result in ''catastrophe.'' The main opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia said, ``We see it as
an act of terrorism.''
Bin Laden, the target of the U.S.-led raids, urged Muslims to rise up if Afghanistan came under attack,
saying in a pre-recorded message, ``Every Muslim must rise to defend his religion.'' He said Americans
would be unable to live in peace until the Palestinians did.
In Gaza, two Palestinian protesters, including a 13-year-old youth, were shot dead and 40 wounded in
clashes with Palestinian police during a protest by thousands in support of bin Laden.
Witnesses said police killed the demonstrators with live bullets at the rally called by the militant Hamas
group, which called the attacks on Afghanistan ``pure terrorism against an innocent people'' but police
said masked gunmen killed the two.
Palestinian officials said bin Laden had no right to use the Palestinians' plight as a pretext for violence
but were tight-lipped on whether they supported the U.S.-led strike
Analysts say Muslim anger may build further in the coming days as the attacks continue and casualties
grow.
Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, said the western air strikes had brought several Muslim countries
``to the brink of a big war being launched against Islamic states and Muslim people.''
Some U.S. officials have named Iraq as a possible target of a second wave of strikes by the United
States against countries it alleges back terrorism. Iraq denies it sponsors terrorism.
Sabri was speaking as he arrived in Qatar for an emergency meeting of the 56-nation Organization of
the Islamic Conference, which represents the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.
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