PAKISTAN: MMA chief Shah Ahmed Noorani called on the parliament to adopt a resolution that "the US should not be allowed to use our land and bases for attack on Iraq".
An Islamic leader has warned that his party will cripple the Pakistani government if it votes at the United Nations for a US resolution against Iraq.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators took part in the country's biggest protest so far against war on Baghdad yesterday in Karachi.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad told the marchers: "I warn our government that if they vote in favour of the United States we will not allow the government to operate."
Ahmad, the leader of the most organised fundamentalist party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, also told the slogan-chanting crowd: "I also want to give a message to the world that Muslims are not terrorists. Jihad [holy war\] is against terrorism. We are victims in Palestine, in Kashmir, in Afghanistan and now in Iraq."
He repeated that "attack on Iraq will be considered as attack on Islam".
Ahmad, who is also vice-president of the Muttahida Majlis-e- Amal (MMA), a six-party Islamic alliance which had vowed to bring more than a million people on to the streets for the protest, described the turnout as "the biggest rally in the world", which showed taht people hated war and wanted peace.
Demonstrators included women in burqas, the traditional conservative head-to-toe dress, who marched alongside men.
Some protesters brandished posters of Saddam Hussein and at least one placard was seen with the image of Osama bin Laden.
Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil estimated the crowd at more than 100,000 while a spokesman for the MMA told reporters before the start of the meeting that half a million had already thronged the city's main boulevard.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a hardline Islamist leader, whose Jamiat Ulemae Islam party was a key backer of Afghanistan's deposed Taliban regime, assured full support to the Iraqi leader.
"I want to give this message to Saddam Hussein that the people are with him," Rehman said.
Welcoming the stance of France and Germany, he said: "I salute the people of Europe."
He claimed that US forces went to Afghanistan "not to capture Osama bin Laden but to capture the Islamic world and its oil wealth", adding: "America is a terrorist and we will not allow terrorism on Iraq."
Protesters chanted "No blood for oil" and burnt effigies of President Bush and of the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair.
Snaking for 2 kilometres through city-centre, the march was the biggest in Karachi since the US-led war which deposed the Taliban regime in late 2001.
The participants also shouted "Drop Bush, not bombs."
Police strengthened security by erecting large containers on roads, especially around the US consulate, where two police guards were shot dead by a lone assailant on Friday, and at other diplomatic missions.
The MMA includes pro-Taliban groups which are bitterly opposed to US military action.
Earlier, Pakistani tribesmen at an anti-US rally in the MMA-ruled North-West Frontier Province threatened to target American interests if Iraq was invaded.
The rally in Jamrud town, 10 km west of the provincial capital Peshawar, was attended by about 3,500 ethnic Pashtuns living in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, organisers said.
The participants, some armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, burned a US flag and chanted slogans against war on Iraq. "If Americans attacked Iraq, we would be free to target America at any place," Malik Ismail, an elder of local Torkhel tribe, told the gathering.
"Iraq is the second important place for Muslims after Mecca," said march organiser Hafiz Abdul Malik, claiming that Muslims would wage a Jihad against the US if it attacked Iraq. - (AFP, Reuters)