"We are organising meetings in many parts of the country which are bigger than those which took place before the war started," said Andrew Murray, chairman of the Stop the War Coalition press conference.

The group has called a march through London on Saturday, during which participants are to lay flowers outside Downing Street in memory of those who have died in the conflict.

On March 22, two days after US and British troops invaded Iraq, between 200,000 and 700,000 people marched in the British capital against the war.

Another peace group, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), said Wednesday it was gathering evidence with a view to taking top British politicians to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Evidence against Prime Minister Tony Blair, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will be considered on May 25 by five international lawyers before it is presented to court, said CND chairman Carol Naughton.

"The conduct of this war has been inhumane: denying water and electricity to a civilisation which has already endured 12 years of debilitating sanctions," she said.

SPACE.WIRE