ISLAMABAD (IPS) 3 Jan. "After Iraq there will be Iran, and after Iran then Pakistan and afterwards Saudi Arabia. There is a need for all Muslim countries to join hands and forge unity", Mr. Qazi Hoseyn Ahmed, Muttahida Majles Amal’s vice president warned Friday, referring to American preparation of a war against Iraq.

He was addressing a relatively small crowd of anti-American demonstrators in Peshawar, the capital city of the North West Frontier Province controlled by the MMA following the last general lections which also gave it a power-sharing position in the province of Baloochestan that borders with both Afghanistan and Iran, as well as more than a hundred of seats in the nation’s parliament.

Both provinces are hot beds of militant Muslims with large population of Afghan refugees, many of them supporting the orthodox Taleban and al-Qa’eda and opposed to the West in general and the United States in particular.

"It is a big disaster for the MMA coalition which wanted to embarrass the General (Parviz Mosharraf) and show the unpopularity of his support for Washington when it attacked the Taleban in neighbouring Afghanistan", commented a Pakistan journalist in Lahore.

"This is a big victory for the President and the pro-democracy forces in Pakistan, as it proved that contrary to what it is perceived abroad, the overwhelming of Pakistanis do not support Muslim extremists".

A series of attacks on Christian and Western targets in Pakistan last year, including French and Americans, was blamed on Islamic militants opposed to the United States.

The small number of Friday anti-American, anti-Mosharraf demonstrations was in sharp contrast with the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets of Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of American military intervention in Afghanistan in November 2001, supporting both the al-Qa’eda terrorist organisation led by Osama Ben Laden and Taleban, which was armed and trained by Pakistan before being installed in Kabol in 1996.

What surprised most observers was that few people came out despite a recent American bomb that blasted a religious seminary near the Afghan-Pakistan frontier at the weekend.

The incident occurred after an American soldier was shot, US commanders called in air support and a 500lb bomb was targeted at a building in which the gunman, said to be wearing a Pakistani border guard's uniform, had taken refuge

Pakistani officials say the bomb fell on Pakistani territory, but the U.S. says it fell on Afghan soil.

Demonstrators in Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad, Quetta, Multan and elsewhere protested loudly and angrily the presence of American forces in the region and denounced the possible attack on Iraq by the United States.

"No war against Iraq", read a banner at the Peshawar rally attended by some 2.000 people, most of them young boys and elderly, bearded men who burned an effigy of President George W. Bush.

"War will continue until Bush's destruction", the crowd shouted in Multan, located in the populous Punjab province. "Bush is thirsty for Muslims' blood", reported a correspondent for the British news agency Reuters.

"American lives in Pakistan will be in danger if the United States attacks Iraq. If the US attacks Iraq, there will be open war here", warned Maulana Samiul Haq, a leader of the MMA alliance, speaking before some 400 protestors outside Islamabad's Red Mosque, where a banner read: "Holocaust of the Muslims".

"Muslims if you do not open your eyes now, you will be overwhelmed by Jews, Christians and Indians" warned Hafez Sa’id, leader of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group that fight for the unification of the disputed Kashmir, echoing similar statements from Mr. Ben Laden. ENDS PAKISTANI ANTI-US PROTESTS FAILED 3103