Pakistan protests Obama's remark on attacking

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- Pakistani officials called Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama irresponsible for saying that, if elected, he might order unilateral military strikes in Pakistan against al-Qaeda. Hundreds chanted anti-U.S. slogans and burned an American flag in the street to protest the remark.

Obama's comment turned up the heat on already-simmering anger among Pakistanis after senior Bush administration officials said last week that they, too, would consider such strikes if intelligence warranted them.

Further inflaming the situation was a comment by Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican whose White House bid is considered a long shot, that the best way he could think of to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on America would be to threaten to retaliate by bombing Mecca and Medina, the holiest of Islamic sites. U.S. officials quickly distanced themselves from Tancredo's remarks.

In Miran Shah, a major town in the lawless region that borders Afghanistan, about 1,000 tribesmen condemned recent Pakistani military operations in the area and vowed to repel any U.S. attack. "We are able to defend ourselves," local cleric Maulvi Mohammed Roman told the rally. "We will teach a lesson to America if it attacks us."

In Karachi, Pakistani's largest city, about 150 people chanted slogans against the United States, Obama and Tancredo at a demonstration organized by Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, a coalition of six hard-line religious parties. Protesters set fire to a U.S. flag.

"Those who are talking about attacking our holiest places are committing blasphemy," coalition lawmaker Mohammed Hussain Mahanti said. "The punishment for this offense is death, and death only."

In a major policy speech Wednesday, Obama said that, as president, he might order strikes against terrorists in Pakistan's tribal zone, including against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Top officials in the government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, bristled at Obama's comment. "It's a very irresponsible statement," Foreign Minister Khusheed Kasuri told AP Television News. "As the election campaign in America is heating up, we would not like American candidates to fight their elections ... at our expense."