In addition, the United States has already started threatening Syria, Langley said after repeated “warnings” issued over the past few days by senior U.S. officials that Damascus faced a critical choice in its dealings with Iraq.

Protests here and elsewhere in the United States, notably Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, are in solidarity with a global day of protests in dozens of cities around the world -- including in Britain, Italy, Japan and South Korea.

Demonstrators holding a banner march during an anti-war demonstration in Paris

Nearby in front of the seat of the U.S. Congress, a demonstration in support of the U.S.-led war kicked off around noon as thousands of people chanting "USA, USA" and waving U.S. flags filled the Mall for a "Rally for the Troops."

"This is a significant moment in American history and one that we can be proud of," said speaker Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine "It's not the end of the war on terror ... it's the end of the beginning."

The march organized by ANSWER, a key organizer of the massive demonstrations held in the weeks prior to the war, will pass by the headquarters of Halliburton, Bechtel and other corporations set to snap up lucrative postwar reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

Anti-occupation activists also protest the man picked to head an interim government in Iraq, retired three-star U.S. general Jay Garner, 64, under fire for his links to the defense industry and strong support of Israel.

Anti-war protesters march past the Houses of Parliament holding an effigy of Tony Blair

Several thousand protesters opposed to military action in Iraq marched through the streets of London Saturday, even as the first British troops were returning home from the Gulf.

Chanting slogans and waving banners under a bright blue sky, the protesters shouted: "No justice. No peace. Troops out of the Middle East," as the march got underway just after 12:30 pm local time (1130 GMT).

Carrying pictures of war victims and placards saying: "No occupation, No War," the crowd gathered in central London for the walk past Downing Street, parliament, and on to Hyde Park, an AFP journalist said.

British Prime Minister Tony "Blair calls it liberation, it looks to us like occupation," others chanted.

Protesters started from two separate assembly points in central London before meeting in Parliament Square, outside the House of Commons, where a minute's silence was held.

"A minute of silence for the children, the women and the men of Iraq, all the civilians victims of the war," shouted an organizer on a megaphone, before the chants and whistles paused.

Saturday's march is the third held in the capital in recent weeks over the Iraqi war, and was planned to coincide with a massive protest in Washington.

On February 15, more than one million people took to the streets of London to protest the then looming war on Baghdad in what police said was the largest demonstration in the British capital.

On March 22, two days after the start of the war on Iraq, between 200,000 and 700,000 people protested in the British capital.

"war in Iraq had helped open the eyes of South Koreans to the immorality of U.S. foreign policies," Lee

South Koreans rallied here Saturday to protest at what they called a U.S. plot to start a war on North Korea following Iraq.

They chanted slogans and waved banners which urged the United States to stop invading Iraq and seeking to start a war on the Korean peninsula.

Many of them carried pictures of civilian victims of the war in Iraq, with inscriptions reading "Is this liberation?" in reference to the U.S. and British description of the nature of the war in Iraq.

Lee Young-Hee, a renowned pro-unification activist and former communication professor at Hanyang University, said the war in Iraq had helped open the eyes of South Koreans to the immorality of U.S. foreign policies.

"The Bush administration has misled the world opinion as if Iraq had a huge stock pile of weapons of mass destruction and formidable conventional forces," Lee said in front of the crowd of some 3,000.

"But have they found any trace of weapons of mass destruction? Where are all those Iraqi forces gone?... Iraq had nothing left even before this war," he said.

Lee said the threat to peace on the Korean peninsula comes from the United States instead of North Korea, accusing the Bush administration of being intent on attacking the North.

Tens of thousands of Bangladeshis from different political parties took to the streets in a rare display of unity here Saturday to protest the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Activists from Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party marched through the streets shouting anti-U.S. slogans, followed by supporters of the Awami League of her arch-rival Sheikh Hasina Wajed.

"Down with U.S. imperialism," "America get out of Iraq," "Heroic people of Iraq go ahead, we are with you" shouted the demonstrators.

An estimated 50,000 demonstrators from scores of political, social and professional groups took part in the protest, police and witnesses said.

Organizers said the collapse of the regime in Baghdad gave them no reason to ease the anti-war demonstrations.

Bangladesh, the world's third largest Muslim majority country, has repeatedly called for an end to the war and has seen almost daily anti-U.S. and anti-war protests.

About 1,000 anti-war demonstrators marched through Auckland Saturday, protesting outside a newspaper office and the state television studio over what they said was biased coverage of the conflict in Iraq.

They were also to protest outside a petrol station. Police said the demonstration was peaceful, with no reported arrests.

Global Peace and Justice Auckland (GPJA) spokesman John Minto said that since the war began last month the New Zealand Herald had been become "blatantly biased", but he acknowledged its recent independent editorial line and balanced reportage.

In a letter delivered to TVNZ chief executive Ian Fraser, the protesters said its news service had become a "mouthpiece and visual portal for an unrelenting stream of bald U.S./UK propaganda and blatant lies".

The letter noted the state-owned broadcaster had shown "uncritical footage" from embedded journalists who "were chosen in the first place for their willingness to have their stories and pictures censored by the Anglo-American forces".

The marchers were also to visit the British and Australian consulates before finishing with a rally outside the U.S. consulate.

Hundreds of Kenyan Muslims took to the streets of Nairobi on Friday to protest against the United States' occupation of Iraq, AFP journalists reported.

The demonstrators poured into the capital's streets after midday prayers, carrying placards criticizing U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair and shouting: "Down, down USA, Bush is a terrorist."

The demonstrators then marched to the foreign affairs ministry, where Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) acting secretary general Sheikh Adan Owachu made a speech criticizing the United States.

"We must make full cognizance of the developments in Iraq and the invading forces must leave Iraq. The appointment of an American governor-general to administer Iraq must be resisted by the international community," Owachu told the protesters.

"the protest was to support the fight to end all forms of injustices against the Iraqi people and to press for an end to the US occupation of Iraq." Owachu said

"Americans have failed to prove to the world that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and must therefore be held accountable for the destruction and compensate all Iraqi families killed or injured as a result of the war," SUPKEM coordinator Hassan Omar told journalists at the demonstration.

The Kenyan government has said UN Security Council backing should have been obtained before hostilities were launched against Iraq.

About 1,000 handicapped people in wheelchairs took part in a huge anti-war demonstration in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta Friday that held up traffic for over an hour.

"We are against the war in Iraq as it will make thousands of people handicapped. We know how much this pains," said protester Samir Nandy, a middle-aged man in a wheelchair.

More than 3,000 people took part in the demonstration outside the city's tightly guarded American Center cultural complex, Calcutta's deputy commissioner of police, Kundanlal Tamta, told AFP.

About 800 people from Christian groups also joined the demonstrators, who shouted anti-U.S. slogans.

"War means destruction, miseries. We want an immediate end to the war which has claimed thousands of lives and made as many homeless," said demonstrator Herode Roy.

"We wanted to protest against the war in Iraq in a novel way. We condemn U.S.' aggressive policies," said vehicle-owner Ramen Ghosh.

India has seen regular protests since the U.S.-led war in Iraq began on March 20.