Anti-US protests and demonstrations spread rapidly throughout Arab and Muslim countries on Tuesday against the relentless strikes the United States and its ally Britain are waging against Afghanistan, sources reported.
Protests took various forms that ranged between peaceful marches in Oman and deadly riots and clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and their own police forces in the Gaza Strip. But all had one thing in common: most of the protestors were students.
Students of the Islamic Collage in the Gaza strip defied the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to permit their demonstration on Monday, which developed into a gun battle between Palestinian gunmen and anti-riot policemen of their own, resulting in the death of two Palestinians.
The PA said it will launch an inquiry to determine responsibility, since each – police and students – blamed the other.
In Iraq, where many expect their sanctions-burdened country to be the United States’ next target in its so-called war against terrorism, some 15,000 Iraqis demonstrated Tuesday on the streets of Baghdad, shouting "Down with American terrorism against Islam,” AFP reported.
Protestors, mostly students, gathered at the al-Mustansiriya university in the north of the capital, carrying Iraqi flags.
"The masses of Baghdad condemn the American aggression against the Muslim people of Afghanistan", read one banner. "A curse on Zionist Jews who took Arab land," said another.
"Long live Saddam Hussein," the students yelled.
The Iraqi president denounced the US strikes as an "illegal aggression" after they began on Sunday following the failure of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia to hand over prime suspect Osama bin Laden to the United States.
Saddam is the sole Arab leader not to condemn the September 11 attacks which left thousands dead in the United States and were pinned on bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri warned Tuesday that US and British forces target Iraq might use the pretext of terrorism to strike Iraq too in a bid to "to settle old scores".
Omani students were not as belligerent, as they demonstrated peacefully in Muscat for a second day Tuesday against the US and British strikes on Afghanistan, unnamed witnesses were cited by AFP as saying.
About 150 men in all-white long national robes and traditional colored headwear marched round Sultan Qaboos University shouting slogans opposing the operations against the Taliban Islamic regime.
"God is Great, Israel is the enemy of God," they shouted. "Does unlimited justice mean killing the innocent?"
Protests are rare throughout the Gulf monarchies and usually have official backing.
The previous day several hundred theology students demonstrated outside the campus.
The Oman News Agency reported Monday that "a number of students organized a march in Muscat in reaction to the current events in Afghanistan."
"The march is intended to express their rejection of terrorism and of violence in all its forms," the agency added without further details.
An Omani official told AFP Mony he was worried about the possible repercussions on his country because the attacks on Afghanistan coincide with joint Omani-British military exercises in the sultanate.
"The Omanis fear reprisals because of the role they could be accused of playing in the attacks," the official said on condition of anonymity, describing the strikes as "terrible."
More than 23,000 British troops are taking part in the Swift Sword II exercises, which London says represent "the largest deployment of British troops in an exercise since the mid-1980s."
The maneuvers, planned before the September 11 attacks, climax from October 15-26, according to AFP.
Indonesian police late Tuesday took a somewhat tough approach, as they ordered hard-line Islamic demonstrators to leave the US embassy area after two days of protests against the US-led air strikes on Afghanistan.
The order came hours after officers fired warning shots, tear gas and water cannon as demonstrators tried to shift a barbed-wire barricade outside the heavily-guarded mission, according to AFP’s account of events.
Police, who have tolerated weeks of peaceful protests, cracked down Tuesday for the first time in line with a government vow to suppress "anarchic" protests which have damaged the economy.
"You must leave the area and go back to your homes after prayers," an officer told the crowd through the loudspeaker fitted in a water cannon.
Some 500 armed police, carrying batons, shields and tear gas launchers, and three water cannon advanced to back up the warning.
The officer, First Lieutenant M. Chairul, told demonstrators police had been tolerant for two days, but since they were now blocking the road and two policemen had been injured action had to be taken.
Some 100-150 protesters from the radical Front for the Defenders of Islam began leaving the area. No major clashes were reported but police were pelted with small stones and sticks.
The government of the world's largest Muslim-populated country has threatened to clamp down on unruly protests. Some hard-line groups have warned they would target embassies and forcibly expel foreign nationals following the air strikes, in retaliation for the September 11 attacks on the US.
AFP said that three battalions of troops (about 2,000 men) and 30 armored vehicles have been deployed to back up the police, Jakarta military commander Major General Bibit Waluyo said.
Waluyo, quoted by Antara news agency, appealed to protesters to act peacefully. "We are still in the midst of a crisis. Do not add more suffering ... do not destroy our own nation," AFP quoted its fellow agency as calling out.
Indonesia, burdened with massive debts since the 1997-98 regional financial crisis, relies heavily on foreign aid and investment.
The Front for the Defenders of Islam has given the government three days to sever ties with the United States. Should the government not comply, it has threatened to break into the US and other embassies, destroy US assets and forcibly expel Americans and citizens of allied nations.
"If the government has not severed ties with the US and its allies by tomorrow [Wednesday], we will call on Muslims to conduct sweepings against foreigners [to drive them out," its leader Habib Muhammad Riziq Shihab told AFP.
Protests have been relatively small but helped drive down the stock market and rupiah in recent days.
Before the clash with Front members, some 200 members of the Indonesian Muslim Student Action Unity burnt a US flag outside the embassy.
The students earlier rallied outside the nearby United Nations building. "US and Britain are enemies of civilization," read one poster. "America the real terrorist," said another.
At Makassar, capital of South Sulawesi province, dozens of students held a protest at the provincial parliament.
They too gave Jakarta 48 hours to cut relations and threatened otherwise to make Americans and Jews living in Makassar "live unhappily," the Detikcom online news service said.
They set fire to a British flag and damaged a McDonald's billboard. Other students later burnt a US flag and an effigy of President George W. Bush, Detikcom said.
Some 100 police plus a water cannon and an armored vehicle guarded the US consulate in the country's second largest city, Surabaya, where some 200 Front members demonstrated.
The US embassy in Jakarta was closed for a second day while the British embassy reopened. About 10,000 Americans and between 2,000 and 3,000 Britons live in the country but there were no signs of any mass exodus – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
