Protesters say US must go as troops seize Saddam aide

TENS of thousands of protesters yesterday demanded the United States get out of Iraq as US troops arrested a fourth wanted aide of Saddam Hussein.

Demonstrators poured out prayers in Baghdad mosques, chanting anti-American slogans and calling for an Islamic state to replace Saddam's toppled government.

The protests on the Muslim holy day came as regional states met in Saudi Arabia to discuss a response to the Iraq war.

US Central Command in Qatar said Iraqi Kurds had captured and handed over Samir Abul Aziz al-Najim, a senior Baghdad official of Saddam's Baath Party, near Mosul in northern Iraq.

He was the fourth person to be detained from a US list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis. US Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said Najim may have been posted to northern Iraq to take command of some military operations there.

In the first Friday prayers since US tanks drove to the heart of Baghdad last week, a Muslim preacher said the United States had invaded to defend Israel and denied Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Followers of the preacher, Ahmed al-Kubaisi, carried Korans and waved banners that read “No to America. No to Secular State. Yes to Islamic State”.

“Leave our country, we want peace,” one banner read.

“This is not the America we know. The America we know respects international law, respects the right of people,” Kubaisi said.

Meanwhile, the US is considering cancelling talks expected to be held in Beijing next week on ending North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons programme after Pyongyang said it had begun reprocessing spent fuel rods, a Bush administration official said.

The senior official said the US had no indication as yet that North Korea had begun reprocessing the spent fuel rods, which could allow it to make several nuclear weapons, but he said it was possible Pyongyang had done so and the US would not yet know.

“Whether the talks go forward, that's not decided. There is active consideration to cancelling them,” the official said.

“We don't know of any reprocessing but it's possible that it's begun and we just haven't determined it yet,” he said.