Up to 800,000 people gathered in Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya today to pray for peace in the biggest anti-Iraq war event yet in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Officials with the moderate Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia's leading Islamic group and organiser of the prayers, estimated 700,000 to 800,000 people poured into a military parade ground in Surabaya for the event, which broke up peacefully at midday.
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Indonesian Muslims attend an anti-war protest today
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"We are not defending Saddam Hussein but we are simply defending humanity, justice and world order," Mr Fachruddin Masturoh, NU's deputy spiritual head, told the crowd.
Elsewhere in Asia, tens of thousands of supporters of Pakistani Islamic parties rallied today in the northern city of Rawalpindi to denounce the US plans, and thousands turned out in anti-war protests in Japan yesterday.
In neighbouring Malaysia, where Islam is the official religion, the pro-government New Straits Timessaid in an editorial today there was "no moral case for war against Iraq" because it was not about weapons of mass destruction, terrorism or liberating an oppressed people.
Indonesian politicians and religious leaders fear a US attack on Iraq could spark a severe backlash in the strongly Muslim county, where moderates as well as militants have been highly critical of US policy in the Middle East.
About 85 per cent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim. The vast majority are moderate and support government moves against Islamic militants suspected of bombing the nation's tourist island of Bali last October, killing 202 people.
"Radicalism will get its momentum, because they could say America has conducted violence...We won't be listened to anymore," Mr Hasyim Muzadi, chief of the 40-million strong NU said ahead of today's rally.