"It gives a peculiar taste and spiritual joy when you chant Allah-o-Akbar (God is great) as enemy jets rain bombs during the war," prayer leader Mohammad Abdul Aziz told worshippers at Islamabad's main Red Mosque last week.

He is one of several prayer leaders exhorting devotees to take up arms against the hi-tech US-led forces.

But despite the glorious images touted by the likes of Aziz and the fiery pledges of their followers, the Iraqi embassy in Islamabad has received no requests for visas from Pakistanis other than journalists, a diplomat told AFP.

The would-be jihadis want the government to arrange trips to Iraq.

"The government should make arrangements for 10,000 volunteers of this area to take part in jihad against US forces in Iraq," said Maulana Mohammad Zaman, an Islamic leader in the deeply conservative tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, during an anti-war rally.

"I am ready to go to Iraq to fight against the infidels if someone would arrange for me to go there," said Ali Gul, 21, at a protest by up to 100,000 protestors in the south-west city of Quetta.

"I am willing to go and fight if I am asked," echoed Afghan national Matiullah, 25, chanting "jihad, jihad" at the same rally.

Cries of "Jihad" reverberated through the massive anti-war rallies across Pakistan in the past month. It is the catch-cry of the anti-war, anti-US masses.

But publicy, the Islamic party alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which has led the largest rallies seen yet in Pakistan in recent weeks, is discouraging its followers from embarking on the armed jihad trail.

"It is not the policy of MMA to send volunteers to fight jihad in Iraq," MMA spokesman Riaz Durrani told AFP."

"If on the Iraqis' call any Muslim from Pakistan wants to go to Iraq, he may go...but only provided the government allows him to do so."

The MMA advocates peaceful means to stop the war. "Like mass public protests and political pressure," Durrani said.

"We will be dubbed mullahs who want to create chaos if we start sending volunteers to fight there."

MMA parliamentarian Liaqat Baloch said exporting mujahedin (fighters) was the wrong approach. "The need is for diplomatic, political and moral support to condemn US aggression on Iraq," he told AFP.

An estimated 6,000 Pakistanis crossed the border into Afghanistan to defend the Taliban against the US-led bombing campaign in late 2001. Thousands of Pakistanis took up arms against occupying Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Public opinion in Pakistan, an Islamic republic of 145 million and key US ally, is strongly against the war in Iraq. The government has "deplored" the US-led military action.

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SPACE.WIRE