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Twenty Thousand in Yemen Protest Afghan War
SANAA, Oct 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Chanting anti-American slogans, around 20,000 people streamed through a Yemeni town Saturday to protest the U.S.-led air strikes on Afghanistan, officials said.
The rally in Omran, 30 miles north of Sanaa, was led by the regional head of the ruling People's Conference Party of President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, news agencies reported.
The official, Hussein Abdullah al-Ahmer, is also the son of the speaker of parliament.
Protesters carried pictures of Osama bin Laden and signs reading, "America is a great Satan" and "Bush is a killer." They also called for
jihad (struggle), officials said.
No arrests were reported.
Earlier, Yemeni politicians, intellectuals and average citizens condemned the American bombing of Afghan Muslims. "We are against terrorism, and against killing innocent people without a clear-cut definition of terrorism," they said, the daily
Yemeni Times reported.
Mohammed Qahtan, Head of the Islah (Reformation) Political Department said his group condemned attacks on the Afghan people, just as they had condemned those against Washington and New York.
"Reactions to terrorist actions should adhere to the law, not to the instinct of revenge," he added.
Describing lasting freedom as a big American hoax, Secretary General of the Ba'ath Party, Qasem Sallam, expressed his party's protest against the "brutal aggression and showing [of] muscles" against an unarmed nation.
He added that such a slogan was a pretext for the U.S. to kill women and children in Afghanistan.
Sheikh Zeid al-Muhatwari, Imam and head of the Badr Mosque and Islamic Center, said the U.S. has "gone mad".
"The most powerful country in the world is using the most sophisticated weaponry against the poorest people in the world. I can see that the U.S. has lost the ability to see things properly and has begun working against its interests," he said.
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