RAWALPINDI, 10 March 2003 — Tens of thousands of people thronged Rawalpindi yesterday against a possible war on Baghdad in Pakistan’s biggest show of solidarity with the people of Iraq so far.

Speakers at the rally demanded the government not vote for a US resolution seeking UN authorization to invade Iraq.

Crowds packed a three kilometer stretch of the city’s main boulevard leading to the Liaqat Bagh where a rally was attended by at least 200,000 people, witnesses said.

However, police estimated the crowd was 70,000 strong.

The rally was organized by the six-party Islamic alliance of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) which had vowed to bring one million people on to the streets of Rawalpindi to express anger against “US terrorism”.

Security was tight, though organizers pledged the march against a possible US-led war on Iraq would be peaceful.

Even before the march started, several thousand people gathered near the venue where it was to begin. Hundreds of police wearing helmets, wielding sticks and metal shields manned intersections along the road. Buses and other vehicles were not being allowed near the venue at Liaqat Bagh, a traditional site for holding political rallies in Rawalpindi.

This was the second of two anti-war protests that organizers have optimistically dubbed “Million Man Marches” and followed criticism in the local press that Muslims were keeping silent while people in the Western world staged large anti-war rallies. Last Sunday, about 100,000 people rallied in the port city of Karachi against a war in Iraq in Pakistan’s biggest anti-US protest in years.

“Today’s gathering is certainly bigger than the MMA rally held in the southern port city of Karachi last week,” MMA spokesman Mufti Abrar said.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad, head of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s largest Islamic party and a key component of MMA, warned President Pervez Musharraf not to side with the United States in its war against Iraq.

“Pakistan should not abstain, but it must oppose any US resolution if it is put for voting in the UN Security Council,” Ahmad said.

Pakistan, holding a rotating seat as non-permanent member of the Security Council, has not spelled out how it will vote.

Thousands of people sat on the road as the organizers installed scores of loudspeakers for the people to listen to the MMA leaders.

Women were seen on the rooftops and many people were perched on trees along the road. The participants, including Islamic parties activists, chanted “Down with America”, “Friends of America are traitors” and “No war for oil”.

Some zealots were seen carrying portraits of Osama Bin Laden.