Iraq seeks anti-US Arab protests over Baghdad bombing

The Baghdad parliament appealed yesterday to Arab people to demonstrate their outrage at US and British air raids near the Iraqi…

The Baghdad parliament appealed yesterday to Arab people to demonstrate their outrage at US and British air raids near the Iraqi capital when US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, starts his first Middle East tour.

"Let February 24th be a day to protest a visit by Colin Powell to a number of Arab capitals . . . and express, by all means, anger at the crimes committed against the Iraqi and Palestinian peoples," the Iraqi National Assembly speaker, Mr Saadoun Hammadi, said in letters to Arab parliaments.

Mr Powell will have a chance to gauge dwindling Arab support for UN economic sanctions against Iraq when he visits Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The split among NATO members over last Friday's bombing of air defence installations on the outskirts of Baghdad deepened yesterday. France condemned the action as illegal while Germany withheld public support.

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The Russian President, Mr Putin, in a statement outlining a telephone conversation with President Jacques Chirac of France, said the air strikes were counter-productive to efforts to resolve Baghdad's standoff with the West on weapons' inspections.

As Israel and the US began a Patriot missile exercise in a stark reminder of the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi media vowed revenge against Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for abetting the attacks, launched from their air bases.

About 20,000 Iraqis staged a second day of protest marches in Baghdad organised by the ruling Ba'ath party against the first air raids around the Iraqi capital since 1998.

NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said yesterday that the alliance had nothing to do with US-British strikes on Iraq and predicted the operation would not affect his talks with Russian leaders.

"I do not think that that is an option," he told reporters after arriving in Moscow for meetings with President Putin.

"NATO is not engaged in this particular activity. Saddam Hussein represents a threat to security in that region and we all have to find our own ways to deal with that."