"Government should make arrangements for 10,000 volunteers of this area to take part in jihad (holy war) against US forces in Iraq," Maulana Mohammad Zaman, a religious leader of the Skhakot tribal region bordering Afghanistan, told a crowd of some 500 people.

The volunteers' programme was unveiled as demonstrations continued in various cities of Pakistan against the US-British invasion of oil-rich Muslim country.

Pakistan's foreign office has said the government would not help volunteers travel to Iraq, but similar demands were made at two other rallies in the semi-autonomous region.

The fundamentalist Jamaat Ahle Sunnat party said it would organise a convoy of protesters to travel 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) from Rawalpindi near here to the southern port city of Karachi on trucks and buses.

Organisers said they would start the three-day journey, designed to stoke anti-war feeling, on Thursday.

Around 3,000 people turned up at a rally called by the secular Awami National party in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Speakers chanted anti-US slogans and urged France, China, Russia and Germany to take effective measures to stop the war in Iraq.

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SPACE.WIRE