IRAQ

Guardian: Shiites March in Baghdad Against U.S.
By HAMZA HENDAWI

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - In the largest anti-U.S. demonstration in Baghdad since the end of the war, thousands of Shiite Muslims marched peacefully through the capital Monday to protest the U.S. occupation and reject what they feared would be a U.S.-installed puppet government.

About 5,000 rallied in front of a Sunni Muslim mosque in the capital's northern district of Azimiyah, and then marched to the nearby Kadhamiya quarter, home to one of the holiest Shiite shrines in Iraq. Some carried portraits of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran and other noted Shiite clerics.