Huge crowd demonstrates to support Hezbollah
BAGHDAD -- Hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites thronged a Baghdad slum yesterday to show support for Hezbollah as Arab anger toward Israel mounted on the Muslim holy day. Such protests have even reached Saudi Arabia, where public discontent is rare.
In the most violent demonstration, about 100 people threw stones and a firebomb at the British Embassy in Tehran, damaging the building but harming nobody as they accused Britain and the United States of being accomplices in Israel's fight against Hezbollah, a Shi'ite group in Lebanon that is backed by Persian Iran.
Even Sunni Muslim demonstrators took to the streets of Damascus, Cairo, and Amman. But their numbers were dwarfed by the huge Shi'ite turnout in Baghdad, organized by anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Crowds of Sadr supporters from across Iraq's Shi'ite heartland converged on the capital's Sadr City district, chanting ``Death to Israel, Death to America" in the biggest pro-Hezbollah rally since the conflict began July 12.
Demonstrators, wearing white shrouds symbolizing willingness to die for Hezbollah, waved the guerrillas' banner and chanted slogans in support of their leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.
``Allah, Allah, give victory to Hassan Nasrallah," the crowd chanted before burning Israeli and American flags.
The rally was peaceful , a remarkable achievement in a city where bombings and shootings are an everyday occurrence. Sadr City is under the effective control of the cleric's Mahdi Army militia, which maintains its own security network.
However, five busloads of Shi'ite demonstrators were ambushed late yesterday as they returned home from the rally, police said. About 20 people were wounded in the attack southwest of Baghdad. 