‘Let’s bomb Texas, they’ve got oil too’

TENS of thousands of anti-war demonstrators staged huge marches across the world, clashing with police as they converged on heavily guarded US embassies.

Barely three hours after the first cruise missiles slammed into Baghdad, a wave of demonstrations started in Asia and Australia and rolled swiftly across Europe and the Middle East towards the United States, where anti-war activists planned hundreds of protests. In the Arab world, thousands of protesters vented their fury at the start of the war, with demonstrators in Egypt and Syria demanding the expulsion of US ambassadors.

In Cairo, the Arab world’s biggest city, riot police used water cannon and batons against hundreds of rock-throwing protesters who tried to storm towards the US embassy.

In Italy, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is one of Washington’s staunchest allies on Iraq, the three biggest trade unions staged a two-hour strike.

Italian cities were thrown into chaos as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets, in many cases blocking train stations and highways. The biggest protest was a march on the US embassy in Rome.

In Germany, more than 80,000 schoolchildren protested in the capital, Berlin, and Stuttgart, Cologne, Munich and Hanover. “Let’s bomb Texas, they’ve got oil too,” read one banner.

Spanish police in riot gear fired rubber bullets at anti-war demonstrators, including well-known actors and celebrities, who gathered in central Madrid in protest at Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s support for the US-led attacks.

Violence also erupted in Calcutta, eastern India, when about 1,000 protesters waving banners reading “US warmongers go to hell” tried to storm a US cultural centre.

Thousands of British anti-war campaigners blocked roads and scuffled with police as protests spread.

In France, more than 10,000 people, mostly students, surged through Paris chanting anti-war slogans, reflecting their government’s rigid anti-war stance which has infuriated Washington and split the international community in two.

On the other side of the planet, protesters brought Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne, to a standstill.

Organisers put the crowd at 40,000, police said it numbered “tens of thousands.”

Anti-US sentiment was also strong in Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan.