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Thousands decry bombardments

Heavily armed Pakistani police patrol the streets in Lahore, Pakistan. Protests continued throughout Pakistan on Friday as allied forces bombed Afghanistan for a 6th straight day. PHOTO: AP

Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Pakistan Friday to protest against America's nightly bombardment of fellow Muslims in Afghanistan. As each bomb falls, the anger of ordinary Pakistanis -- who believe that the country's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, has betrayed them by siding with the US -- is rising.

In the port city of Karachi, police fired teargas to disperse protesters who set fire to cars and buses. They also smashed the windows of an easy American target, a branch of the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken. Seven people were wounded by gunfire and several others sustained minor injuries, witnesses said. No further details of their injuries were immediately available.

As smoke billowed from burning tires and ordinary residents remained inside, the demonstrators hurled stones and tried to break into government offices and banks. Crowds also gathered in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, the capital's chaotic twin city.

In general, though, yesterday's protests after Friday's noon prayers were more muted than earlier in the week, when four people were shot dead near Quetta and rioters burned down a UN office and a cinema.

Many of yesterday's demonstrators belong to the same Pashtun ethnic group as the Taliban. For them, there is now only one hero: Osama bin Laden.

"America wants to capture Afghanistan and they want to finish the Islamic system in Afghanistan," one protester in Peshawar said. "This is a lame excuse of America that Osama has destroyed the World Trade Center."

In Peshawar, from where the grand trunk road immortalized by Kipling begins, 5,000 people gathered to burn effigies of US President George W. Bush and listen to speeches in praise of bin Laden.

The police did not take any chances. Before the mosques began to empty, they encircled the center of the city with steel and barbed wire. A large procession from the pro-Taliban tribal areas was turned back. In an address, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the leader of Pakistan's largest religious party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, issued a direct challenge to Pakistan's military leader.

"Musharraf has violated his constitutional limits and has no justification to stay in power. He should resign immediately or else we will lay siege to Islamabad," he said.

In normal times, Mullah Ahmed's rhetoric would be little more than an empty boast. At the ballot box, Pakistan's rightwing Islamist parties have traditionally done badly, winning barely 3 percent of the vote.

But these are not normal times. As each day passes, the religious parties are gaining in strength and confidence. General Musharraf has made it clear that he will tolerate no dissent from his internal opponents.

This week he completed a dramatic reshuffle within the army, sacking the pro-Taliban head of Pakistan's powerful ISI intelligence agency, Lieutenant-General Mehmood Ahmed. Other rightwing officers were also weeded out and replaced by Musharraf loyalists. There are rumors that the bar at the army's headquarters in Rawalpindi has been reopened.

While he may have done enough to head off a counter-coup from within the ranks, General Musharraf still faces the prospect of a full- blown insurrection from Pakistan's tribal belt. The maliks -- tribal elders who live along the border with Afghanistan, in North West Frontier Province, and in the dusty mountains south of Kandahar -- have never felt much affinity with the modern Pakistani state. They feel even less now.

To prevent further violence, the army arrived two days ago to patrol the streets of Quetta, a city that resembles a war zone.

Police took up positions on rooftops and army trucks were posted outside the UN buildings that have not been burned down. Armored vehicles and truckloads of helmeted troops armed with machine guns patrolled the city.

"There is no way that the government will continue to stand for this loss of life and property," General Musharraf's spokesman, Major-General Rashid Qureshi, made clear yesterday, military shorthand which carries a clear message that all rioters will be shot.
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