Police on Friday prevented hundreds of radical Muslims from marching on the US embassy in the Bangladesh capital on Friday while thousands of protesters gathered in another part of the city to denounce US strikes on Afghanistan, witnesses said. US-led forces launched attacks on Afghanistan on October 7. The prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the United States, Osama bin Laden, is being sheltered by Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.
Bangladesh's new government of Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, which took office on October 10, is facing pressure from Islamic parties to withdraw its support for the United States but Khaleda shows no sign of changing her position. Outside Dhaka's main Baitul Mokarram Mosque, nearly 2,500 activists from Islamic Constitution Movement (ICM) and the Islamic Laws Implementation Council held a noisy protest against what they called indiscriminate bombing by US aircraft and the death of innocent Afghan civilians.
''Bangladesh cannot support the inhuman attacks on the helpless Afghan people who are being made homeless by thousands every day and forced to seek shelter outside the country,'' one ICM leader said.
Bureau Report