Thousands protest US drone attacks in Pakistan

Supporters of the Pakistani religious party Jamat-e-Islami raise their hands during a rally to condemn U.S drone attacks. -- PHOTO: AP

PESHAWAR (Pakistan) - MORE than 10,000 Islamists held an anti-US protest in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday calling for an immediate stop to American drone attacks in tribal areas, police said.

The activists from the country's largest fundamentalist Islamic party Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) blocked a main road and staged a six-hour sit-in in front of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial parliament.

The demonstrators chanted anti-US slogans and carried banners and placards reading 'Death for America", 'Stop drone attacks in Pakistan' and 'No to American interference in Pakistan'.

One banner read: 'Listen Obama, do not kill innocent Muslims'.

'Why is the government silent on US drone attacks? These attacks are against Pakistan's interests,' the JI chief Syed Munawar Hasan told the gathering.

A police officer at the scene put the number of protesters at over 10,000, as did an intelligence official. The protest coincided with two US drone strikes targeting vehicles in Pakistan's lawless tribal district of North Waziristan which killed at least seven militants. -- AFP