AMERICA STRIKES BACK / Worldwide Reverberations 

Reuters  

QUETTA, Pakistan the Pakistani U.S. demonstrators who brandished pictures of Osama bin Laden and burned cars and a United Nations office in protests U.S. and British military strikes in Afghanistan. One person was killed.  

Seven others were wounded in gun battles in the western city of Quetta as chants of “Death to America” and “Bush is a terrorist” echoed through the debris-strewn streets.  

Protesters also marched in the Pakistani cities of Islamabad Rawalpindi as well as in Lahore, Peshawar in the northwest and the southern business capital, Karachi.  

A pall of smoke hung over Quetta as the police battled thousands of supporters of the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan. Protesters set fire to the office of the United Nations Children’s Fund, two movie theaters, several shops, a bank, vehicles and an office of Pakistan’s Central Investigations Agency. Windows were smashed at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.  

“The crowd was surging down the road,” said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN agency. “It was pretty scary because we had staff in there. We’ve got high walls around our offices, but the protesters managed to break our windows by throwing stones. They attacked the UNICEF building nearby and set it on fire. Fortunately, no one was hurt.”  

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said the attack on UN facilities was unfortunate.  

“To prevent the recurrence of today’s incidents, the government has tightened security arrangements around UN offices in Quetta and other cities,” the Foreign Ministry said.  

The police fired into the air to disperse unruly crowds in the center of Quetta and used tear gas and clubs against protesters in another part of the city.  

As dusk approached, Quetta had the look of a deserted battlefield guarded by thousands of police armed with clubs and submachine guns. Small bands of youths continued to make brief attacks before fleeing downside streets.  

The police also fired tear gas to break up protests by students and some Afghan refugees in Peshawar.  

In Landi Kotal, eight kilometers (five miles) from the Torkham border crossing into Afghanistan, militia fired into the air as crowd of 5,000 Pashtun tribesmen burned an effigy of President George W. Bush. The crowd chanted “Long Live the Taliban” and threw stones at the militia. Three protesters were wounded.  

In Karachi, pro-Taliban protesters blocked streets leading to the main business section, and crowds burned tires and threw stones at vehicles on Bunder Road, a main artery in the southern part of the city. The authorities deployed troops around the provincial assembly and the governor’s house, officials said.  

Armored personnel carriers with mounted machine guns were parked opposite the U.S. consulate in Karachi. Hundreds of police and paramilitary rangers were deployed at key installations in the city.  

Syed Kamal Shah, the police chief of Sindh Province, based in Karachi, ordered police officers to remain on duty until further notice. An unknown number of people were detained, a police spokesman said.  

In the capital, Islamabad, UN staff were asked to stay at home. About 1,000 protesters, some armed with sticks or swords and chanting Islamic slogans, marched to the American Center in the city, chanting anti-U.S. and pro-Taliban slogans. Police in riot gear prevented them from reaching the building.  

Key Officers Are Purged  

Molly Moore of The Washington Post reported earlier from Islamabad:  

Seeking to pre-empt threats to the stability to his government on the first day of U.S. led attacks on Afghanistan, the Pakistani leader, Pervez Musharraf, has purged key senior officers in the military and intelligence services who did not support his pro-U.S. position. The agencies helped to create and support the Afghan Taliban militia, according to military sources.  

General Musharraf’s moves Sunday, which included pushing the country’s intelligence chief, General Mahmoud Ahmad, into retirement, were intended to rid his security agencies of top officers unwilling to abandon their support of militant Islamic groups and to prevent them from undercutting orders to sever Pakistan’s ties with the Taliban.  

Reflecting concern that Islamic clerics and senior officers could try to destabilize his two-year-old military government, General Musharraf pushed out at least five prominent officers.  

“General Musharraf clearly said that those who want to accompany him in this new journey can stay aboard, while others may leave,” a senior military official said.  

Some senior military officers, including General Ahmad, the intelligence services chief who led two unsuccessful delegations to Afghanistan to ask the Taliban to surrender Mr. bin Laden, have argued strongly against General Musharraf’s willingness to support U.S. led attacks against the Taliban.  

General Musharraf, who was given 48 hours’ notice of the start of the U.S. operations in Afghanistan by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, used a deft combination of promotions and unexpected early retirements to replace hard-liners with moderates more compatible with his new policies.  

He curtailed the power of Lieutenant General Mohammed Aziz Khan, a strong supporter of Pakistan’s radical Islamic groups, by promoting him from his key decision-making role as the army’s deputy chief of staff to the largely ceremonial position of chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.  

General Musharraf named Lieutenant General Ehsanul Haq, a moderate with an extensive background in Afghan issues, as new head of the intelligence services.