20 die as anti-US protesters hit streets

By EMEKA MADU

KANO - At least 20 people were killed in Nigeria in anti-American riots yesterday and thousands of demonstrators joined peace marches in London and Berlin.

Nigerian authorities issued a shoot-on-sight order and clamped a night curfew on Kano, the biggest city in the mainly Muslim north, after some of the most violent anti-American protests in Africa since US air strikes on Afghanistan began.

Army tanks criss-crossed the streets to quell riots that followed a pattern of Muslim-Christian clashes that have killed thousands in oil-producing Nigeria over the past two years.

"There is rampant shooting in the streets," said Jibrin Idris, who said he was trapped in a building with scores of people in the city's commercial district. "Churches, mosques and shops are on fire. There is smoke everywhere," he said by telephone.

In London, Muslims and Christians marched side by side in a protest against the bombing of Afghanistan that attracted more than 20,000 people, according to police estimates.

"We're here because there are thousands of people across Britain who know that the bombing of Afghanistan is not going to put an end to terrorism," said Carol Naughton, chairwoman of the protest organisers, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

Germany also saw its biggest protest so far against the air strikes. Protest organisers said 30,000 people turned out in Berlin, but police put the figure at about 14,000. Protesters came from some 140 different groups, ranging from far-left Marxist parties to the far-right neo-Nazi NPD party.

"The horror of the Second World War makes all of us in Germany leery of war," said physician Hannes Wand, aged 54.

"I'm against this war because it's not justified and innocent people are being killed and forced to flee their homes."

Police said an estimated 5000 people protested in the Swiss capital, Berne, and about 4000 in the southwest German city of Stuttgart. Smaller protests were held in other parts of the non-Islamic world, including Australia.

In Kano, residents said the protests were hijacked by hoodlums from the city's army of unemployed, who chanted "May God destroy America!" and "Americans are terrorists".

In India, at least 12 people were injured in a clash between Hindus and Muslims after Hindus tried to burn portraits of bin Laden in the state of Bihar, authorities said.

In London, Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain which supported the rally, said: "The first casualty in this war has been the rule of law. President Bush must declare there will be justice for the Palestinians and sanctions against Iraq must be lifted."

- REUTERS

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