Pakistan outrage continues over US missiles

Outrage at the US has continued in Pakistan, with thousands taking to the streets chanting “Death to America” and calling for holy war over an airstrike that devastated a remote border village.

Pakistani authorities suspect al-Qaida operatives had gathered days ago at Damadola to plan attacks early this year in Afghanistan and Pakistan, when the meeting was torn apart by US missiles, an intelligence official said.

Pakistan’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is a key US ally in the war on terror, but many in the Islamic country resent those ties. Feelings intensified following the deaths of 13 villagers in the January 13 US attack.

Officials believe at least four foreign militants also may have died, including an al-Qaida explosives and chemical weapons expert and a son-in-law of the terror network’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or United Action Forum, an opposition Islamic coalition, has organised a series of anti-US protests across the country, the latest on Friday.

The largest was held in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province where Damadola is located.

Several thousand marched from two mosques chanting, ”Jihad (holy war) is our way!” They burned effigies of US President George Bush.

Smaller demonstrations were held in Lahore and a volatile border town, Wana. There was no violence.

“Are you ready for jihad against America?” Dost Mohammed, a coalition party leader, asked the Peshawar gathering.

Hundreds of protesters, most in white prayer caps, raised their hands.

“We will keep fighting jihad with our pens and our voices. If there is need, we will fight with other means,” said Shahid Shamsi, a spokesman for the religious alliance, when asked if it was advocating armed struggle.

“Our mujahedeen have fought against the Russians in Afghanistan and in Kashmir. We will fight if an aggressor occupies us,” he said.

None of the speakers at the Peshawar rally made reference to an audiotape message released the previous day by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who said he was planning more attacks in the US but also called for a truce.

Pakistani lawyers, meanwhile, held separate protests in several cities.

In the capital, Islamabad, about 100 lawyers protested in front of the Supreme Court, chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Musharraf.”

“It seems the country has no sovereignty,” said Abdur Rahman Ansari, deputy chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council. ”The rulers have become like slaves.”

As the domestic backlash over the missile strike continued, Pakistani authorities said they were still investigating who had been meeting at Damadola, and what happened to them.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official told The Associated Press that the al-Qaida figures had met to discuss “new attacks” in coming months on targets believed to be in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to policy, refused to say how agents had learned of the purported attack plans.

Four or five al-Qaida militants are believed to have died in the missile strike, including Egyptian bomb maker Midhat Mursi, who is on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists, and al-Qaida leaders of attacks on US forces in Afghanistan. The government, however, says they are still looking for the graves.