IRAQ: More than 6,000 Shia Muslims marched to the headquarters of the US-led administration in Iraq yesterday in a second day of protests demanding the release of a cleric arrested by US troops.
As US tanks approached, protesters lay down in the road outside a palace complex in central Baghdad that formerly housed Saddam Hussein's top officials and has now been taken over by Iraq's occupiers. They shouted slogans and refused to move.
The protesters had marched from a mosque in southern Baghdad where they massed on Tuesday following the detention of Sheikh Muayad Khazraji, a Shia cleric.
Officials in the US-led administration held talks with protest representatives on defusing the situation, but there was no breakthrough. Clerics running the demonstrations dismissed assertions by US officials that they could not release the Shia leader because he was in the hands of Iraqi authorities.
"If he is not released, we will widen our protests," said cleric Hazim al-Araji.
Local leaders said the US military had told them the cleric was accused of storing arms and calling on Iraqis to oppose the US-led occupation. The US military has not commented on this.
Brig Gen Martin Dempsey said that Sheikh Khazraji was arrested for "criminal and anti-coalition activities".
But the cleric's followers say he is innocent.
Shias, who make up 60 per cent of the population, are pushing for a leading role in governing post-war Iraq after suffering persecution under Saddam's Sunni-dominated government.
Shia clerics said the protests would remain peaceful but protesters warned of dire consequences if Sheikh Khazraji was not freed.
"Today is peaceful but tomorrow will be war," blared a warning from a loudspeaker.
Angry demonstrators burned leaflets handed out by US troops warning that violence would not be tolerated.