"We have at least 5,000 members and they are mostly eager to go to Iraq and fight the Anglo-American forces who are waging an unjust war," Ziaul Kabir Dulu, chairman of the PRMS -- Palestine Repatriated Muktijoddah Sangshad (Freedom Fighters Council), told AFP.

Members of PRMS have fought alongside Palestinians against Israel.

"We seek Allah's blessings and we need fighters to save the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq with the spirit of jihad," Dulu said.

He said he did not know if he would go to the Gulf, as he was in his 50s, but as well as members of his council there were many young Bangladeshis who have told him they want to join the war to save Iraq from "aggression."

Mohammad Shahidullah, PRMS's general secretary, added they took the decision to join the war at a meeting in Dhaka on Monday.

"Our members are spread across Bangladesh, but we are maintaining contact with them," he said.

Asked how they planned to go to Iraq, Dulu said: "We joined the Palestine war by flying through different capitals before reaching Lebanon and we will try to do the same (this time)."

Dulu said the Bangladeshis would be fighting for the Iraqi people, not President Saddam Hussein.

"That is not the issue now, the issue is Iraqi people and their territorial integrity.

"We fought indirectly against the US when we fought with the Palestinians and also during our independence war in 1971, as the US had backed Pakistan."

Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, broke away to emerge as an independent country in 1971 after a nine-month war. Washington sided with the Pakistani military regime as it pursued "ping-pong diplomacy" to restore ties with China with Islamabad's help.

Duli said they wanted government backing as both Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and main opposition leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed have called for an end to the Iraq war.

"Nobody has approached us on this matter," Foreign Secretary Shamser Mobin Chowdhury told reporters.

Anti-war demonstrations have taken place almost daily in Bangladesh, the world's third largest Muslim-majority country, and Dhaka has repeatedly called for a peaceful end to the crisis.

On Monday some 200 men took to the streets demanding the government help them join the war to save Iraq, the Bhorer Kagoj daily reported.

Several demonstrations, including one by the farmers wing of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, were staged Tuesday in the capital Dhaka with protestors burning effigies of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Police kept a close watch and the several hundred demonstrators dispersed peacefully, witnesses said.

SPACE.WIRE