ISLAMABAD, 22 March 2003 — Pakistanis continued venting their anger against the US-led attacks on Iraq yesterday, holding demonstrations in cities and towns across the country, witnesses said.

Police said the protests, which were held in response to a call by the six-party religious alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), passed off peacefully.

The anti-US alliance has called a massive march tomorrow in the eastern city of Lahore. Around 200 rallies with participant numbers ranging between 100 and 6,000 were held amid tight security yesterday, police sources said.

The largest demonstration was in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), bordering Afghanistan. Small rallies were also held in the capital Islamabad and the adjacent city of Rawalpindi as well as other places in three other province, Sindh, Punjab and Baluchistan.

The demonstrators strongly denounced what they called “naked aggression” by the US and British forces in defiance of world public opinion and the will of the majority in the United Nations Security Council.

Witnesses said shops and markets remained open as usual in most parts of the country but a shutdown was witnessed in NWFP, a political stronghold of the religious alliance. Protesters burned effigies of US President George W. Bush as well as American and British flags amid chants of “Death to America, Bush is a dog.”

They carried banners and placards, some of which read “Stop genocide of Muslims” and “No blood for oil.”

A provincial MMA leader, Professor Ibrahim Khan, told a rally in Peshawar that the attack against Iraq was an attack against the entire Muslim world.

“Pakistan should not be silent in this situation and should help Iraq in all practical ways,” he said. Khan demanded the government allow them to travel to Iraq to fight against the invaders.

Outside Islamabad’s Red Mosque, a crowd of about 500 men chanted “We are ready for martyrdom,” “US, we are coming” and “Terrorist — Terrorist US Terrorist.”

“Prepare for jihad, the time has come,” Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Chandio of MMA told the protesters.