Hundreds of Thousands in Pro-Hezbollah Demo in Baghdad

BakuTODAY.net: Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites in pro-Hezbollah demo

04/08/2006 23:24


Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites thronged Baghdad chanting "Death to Israel!" and "Resistance!" in a massive demonstration of support for Lebanon's Hezbollah militia.

Last week the Pentagon increased the number of US soldiers in Iraq to around 130,000 by extending the tours of some 3,700 combat troops by an extra 120 days to help quell the sectarian violence in Baghdad.

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AFP: Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites in pro-Hezbollah demo


The march -- organized by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- was the largest foreign show of support for the Lebanese Shiite guerrillas in the three weeks since Israel launched a devastating ground and air offensive against them

The size and fervour of the rally stoked political tensions in Baghdad, where Sadr's movement has tense relations with the city's Sunni minority, US-led coalition forces and Iraq's fragile government of national unity.

Estimates of the size of the crowd varied wildly. While Sadr's officials insisted a million people had turned out, US military spokesman Major Steven Stover said images taken by drone aircraft showed only 14,000. There was no official government estimate, but reporters at the scene said hundreds of thousands of people had taken to the streets. The Shiite demonstrators wore white shrouds to demonstrate their willingness to accept martyrdom. They marched over US and Israeli flags and waved hundreds of yellow Hezbollah flags in support of the militia's war against Israel.

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