Around 1,000 members of the Shiite Muslim community rallied in the city of Multan in central Punjab province chanting "do not colonise Iraq," and "stop desecration of shrines."

The crowd also shouted slogans condemning US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"The US and its allies will face severe reaction from the Muslim world if they attack Syria or Iran," Malik Mohammad Saeed Khokhar, the secretary general of Punjab Peace Committee, told the rally.

Another 2,000 mostly women and children demonstrated in the city of Bahawalpur, also in Punjab, under the banners of non governmental organisations which collectively organised the protest against high civilian casualties in the 23-day old military conflict in Iraq.

Hundreds of Shiite Muslims participated in a procession in northwestern city of Peshawar to denounce what they called the sacrilegious acts of the invading forces in the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala.

Muslims should wage jihad (holy war) to defeat "US designs against Islamic states," Shiite leader Allama Jawad Hadi said, while prayer leaders in mosques delivered strong sermons against "the usurpation of Iraq by US-British armies."

A small rally was also organised in the capital Islamabad by Shiite Muslims to express solidarity with the people of Iraq.

strs/mmg/rj/hw

SPACE.WIRE