Police in gunfight with armed protesters

War on terrorism: Pakistan

Troops and armoured cars were deployed in cities across Pakistan after at least one person was killed and many more injured in violent protests against the continuing attacks on Afghanistan.

The worst violence occurred in the south-western city of Quetta, where groups of demonstrators attacked and burned shops, cinemas and the local office of the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef).

A 26-year-old man died after being shot during an exchange of gunfire between police and armed protesters, and foreign journalists were barricaded in one of the city's hotels for their own safety.

There were flashes of violence in the cities of Peshawar and Karachi, as well as in the Khyber Pass, close to the frontier with Afghanistan.

Raucous but non-violent demonstrations occurred in the capital, Islamabad, and the western border town of Chaman. Embassies and foreign-owned premises in several cities were under heavy military guard.

But Pakistan's President, General Pervez Musharraf, insisted that the protesters represented an insignificant minority of the country's 145 million people.

"All the decisions we've taken have been in the national interest," he told a press conference. "I am very positive that the vast majority are with us... There are some extremists who agitate, but I believe it is controllable, and we will take it as it comes."

The protests erupted after a night which many Pakistanis spent in front of their televisions watching the bombardment of their troubled western neighbour. In Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province and home to tens of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan, the protests began at 9am.

A group of about 1,000 university students gathered in the Khyber Bazaar area of the city, where they chanted anti-American slogans and hurled stones before being violently dispersed with tear gas and baton charges by the police.

The crowd of young men chanted "long live Islam", and vowed to fight alongside the Taliban, whose embattled capital, Kabul, is just half a day's drive beyond the Khyber Pass. At least nine people were taken to hospital, and one man lost his thumb after a blow from a police baton.

"We were afraid," said Nasir Khan, a shopkeeper who watched the riot. "It was the most serious protest we've seen here because there were so many people joining in."

"This is a stupid thing for the Americans to do," said Rahin Bakhsh, a taxi driver. "Because they want bin Laden, they kill a whole nation. They do not have this right."

In the semi-autonomous tribal areas in the Khyber Pass, there were reports of tyres being set alight, and ofroad blocks manned by Pashtuns, the ethnic group that dominates the Taliban.

Three people were wounded when tribal militia opened fire on a group of Pashtuns who were burning an effigy of George Bush.

Even Afghan refugees who oppose the Taliban were filled with dread at the prospects for friends and family left behind in Taliban-controlled areas and exposed to the bombing.

"This is a shocking attack," said Mohammed Nadir, a former medical student who fled Kabul after being imprisoned by the Taliban six years ago. "Sixty per cent of these raids are on targets, but the rest will harm innocent people. "This isn't a battle front you can run away from. It comes from the sky. All 12 members of my family are in Kabul, and when I phoned them there was no answer. I don't know what has happened to them."

The most frightening incidents occurred to the south, in Quetta, where smoke rose from several parts of the city throughout the day. The protests there had a powerfully anti-Western tone.

Among the buildings damaged were the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which had its windows smashed, and those of Unicef, which was set on fire.

"The crowd was surging down the road," said the UNHCR spokesman, Rupert Colville. "It was pretty scary because we had staff in there. We've got high walls round our offices, but the protesters managed to break our windows by throwing stones. They attacked the Unicef building nearby and set it on fire."

Two cinemas were targeted. "Look what they did," wailed Chaudary Umedali outside the smoking ruins of his movie theatre, the Imdad. He had been showing a Hollywood film, Desperado. Mr Umedali said 1,000 people swarmed around the Imdad, smashed down its door and threw firebombs inside. "They didn't like our showing American and English films," he said.

Outside, a huge felled tree lay smouldering on the road. Part of the nearby city market was a charred ruin.

A few shop owners opened their shutters in the morning, but hastily slammed them shut when rioters approached.

Several people were beaten badly for trying to do business as usual.

There were no reported injuries to foreigners.