Demonstrators hold signs in front of a police officer during an anti-war demonstration in downtown Los Angeles

WASHINGTON, January 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Thousands of people from 18 countries, including U.S. and Britain, will take to the streets on Saturday, January 18, to protest an upcoming U.S.-led aggression on Iraq.

Hundreds of thousands of activists from around the United States are to descend on the capital city this weekend to voice their opposition to any war against Iraq, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

A rally at the Capitol and march to a nearby military installation on Saturday, will be supported by parallel demonstrations in San Francisco and 18 countries, including Egypt, Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and Britain.

Tony Murphy, spokesman for organizers "Act Now to Stop War and End Racism," or ANSWER, said the coalition wants to show broad-based objection to a war.

"We believe that the vast majority of people in the United States don't want a war, they want money spent on education and human needs and not weapons of mass destruction," he said.

Recent opinion polls showed that majority of Britons, 2/3 of Americans oppose war on Iraq, as polls conducted in the U.S. and Britain showed that public opinion in both countries opposes a unilateral attack against Iraq without UN approval.

Bush administration is lying

Murphy said the United States is gearing up for military action "at break-neck speed," instead of allowing UN weapons inspectors finish their work, AFP said.

"We believe the Bush administration is lying when it says it is concerned about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and it is in fact concerned about the 100 billion barrels of oil in Iraq," he said, adding that the administration fears the emergence of a large, powerful anti-war movement.

"The Bush administration is trying to outpace the anti-war movement," he said.

But Jane Carr, spokeswoman for Peace Action, which claims 85,000 members across the United States, said "the peace movement has geared up. Nothing, except peace itself, will stop it."

Experts said that a peace movement of such size, prior to the start of a war, is unprecedented.

Stephen Zunes of the University of San Francisco, said the broad-based anti-war activities in smaller communities and university campuses were "greater than after two or three years of heavy fighting in Vietnam," when U.S. forces were already engaged in combat.

A teacher and a student work on a banner at a school in Washington for this weekend's anti-war demonstration

On Saturday, several prominent leaders are scheduled to speak, including Reverend Jesse Jackson and two U.S. Democratic congressmen, Charles Rangel of New York and John Conyers of Michigan.

Several smaller demonstrations are also planned, including a student rally on Sunday, January 19, and a women's vigil on Friday.

According to ANSWER, an October 26 anti-war demonstration, brought 200,000 protesters to Washington and 100,000 to San Francisco. Murphy said this weekend's crowds should be "comparable."

Pursue a pre-existing right-wing agenda of endless war and racism

Murphy described ANSWER as a coalition of civil rights and anti-war groups formed after the tragic and horrific events of September 11, 2001.

"We felt the Bush administration was using this attack to pursue a pre-existing right-wing agenda of endless war and racism," he said.

Richard Foster, from nearby Maryland, said he thought it was important for protesters to attend the rally and show their strength.

Foster lamented how the United States says it wants to change the regime in Iraq, "in order to make things better for people, but some of the people we'll be making things better for will be dead. That doesn't make any sense to me."

Activists chose a long holiday weekend honoring Martin Luther King Jr for their rally, hoping to usurp his message of nonviolence and apply it to a looming conflict with Iraq.

"Just before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King spoke out against a war of aggression against a poor country. We think we're on the eve of another war that's just like that one," Murphy said. "Trying to stop this war is the best way to celebrate his birthday."

Thousands to attend anti-war protests across France

On the same day, thousands of people are expected to take part in demonstrations across France Saturday protesting a possible U.S.-led war on Iraq, one of the organizers said.

"A battle has been joined between public opinion and the forces that want the war," Arielle Denis, of the group Movement for Peace, told a press conference in Paris Thursday, January 16.

Her group is one of 40 coordinating the protests, which will take place the same day as massive anti-war marches in Washington and San Francisco.

Marches are to take place Saturday in dozens of French towns and cities, including one that will begin at 2:30 pm (1330 GMT) in Paris.

The participants plan to proclaim "loud and clear that France will refuse all military engagement and any logistical support" for a war on Iraq and push for Paris to veto any new resolution authorizing force.

France's opposition Socialist Party has joined the movement and plans to distribute a petition setting out the demands.

10,000 to protest in Tokyo against Iraq war

An expected 10,000 people will march through central Tokyo at the weekend, joining a worldwide demonstration against war in Iraq, peace activists said Friday.

Saturday's march will begin in a park close to Japan's Kasumigaseki government ministry district and wind through Ginza, Tokyo's glitziest shopping street, according to a statement issued by one of the coalition of 30 groups, called Peace Boat, AFP said.

A website of the march's organizing committee, World Peace Now (www.worldpeacenow.jp), said it opposed an attack on Iraq and said Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi wanted to help the United States and Britain in violation of Japan's pacifist constitution.

"The Koizumi administration wants to cooperate within the attacking alliance of UK and U.S. and to expand their military engagement in the region by dispatching the number of Self Defense Forces abroad including Afghanistan and Iraq.

"It is clearly in contradiction with Article 9 of the Constitution. We should stop this war entailing the killings and sufferings of innocent civilians, violation of human rights and international laws, as well as environmental destruction," World Peace Now said.

A dictatorship does not justify a military attack on Iraq and its people

In its statement, Peace Boat said that while Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime was dictatorial, "it does not justify the American government to stage a military attack on the country and its people."

Anti-war protesters arrested in Los Angeles

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, 16 anti-war demonstrators were arrested Thursday as they staged a mock funeral in the U.S. city of Los Angeles to protest Washington's plans for a possible attack on Iraq, police said.

The peace activists -- mostly dressed in black and chanting "No war in Iraq!" -- were picked up after they ignored ‘police orders’ to clear the area as they lay down on a city-center pavement pretending to be dead.