JAKARTA (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Police in Pakistan battled thousands of anti-U.S. demonstrators as calls for a holy war against the United States echoed throughout the Muslim world following the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan.While the United States and its allies were at pains to reassure the Islamic world that President Bush's war on terrorism was not anti-Muslim, Muslims from Europe to the Middle East to Asia appeared to be gearing up for a fight.
In the western Pakistani city of Quetta, thousands of marchers shouting ``Death to America'' torched an office of the United Nations Children's Fund, two cinemas, shops, a bank, cars and an office of Pakistan's Central Investigations Agency.
Protesters brandishing pictures of Osama bin Laden, the man blamed for masterminding last month's kamikaze attacks on the United States, paraded through several other Pakistani cities.
In Egypt, more than 20,000 students demonstrated against the strikes launched Sunday in reprisal for the suicide hijackings that killed thousands of people in New York and Washington.
``U.S. go to hell, Afghanis will prevail,'' students cried at Alexandria University.
In India, which has one of the world's biggest Muslim populations, the head of India's biggest mosque said he would call on the country's 120 million Muslims to provide moral support for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States.
``I am not talking about arming and sending Indian Muslims to fight. Just our moral support,'' Syed Ahmed Bukhari, chief cleric of the Jama Mosque in New Delhi, told Reuters.
In India's Muslim-majority state of Kashmir, hundreds of demonstrators protested against the strikes, shouting: ``The superpower is Allah. Afghan warriors -- we are with you.''
PHOTO CAPTION:
Pakistani demonstrators from the Islami Jamiat Tulaba (IJT) party burn an American flag during a pro-Taliban rally in Lahore, October 8, 2001. Police in Pakistan battled thousands of frenzied anti-U.S. demonstrators as calls for a holy war against the U.S. echoed throughout the Muslim world following the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan. (Str/Pakistan/Reuters)