West Coast Erupts in Second Day of War Protests

SAN FRANCISCO — Police in San Francisco arrested 116 anti-war activists as a fresh round of rowdy protests erupted on the US West Coast at the start of the US "shock and awe" air war in Iraq.

The new arrests in San Francisco came a day after more than 1,300 demonstrators were detained in the city at the start of a campaign of civil disobedience launched to protest the US-led war in the Middle East.

They also coincided with a new wave of protests, including one in Los Angeles where 27 people — including clerics — were detained when several hundred demonstrators turned out to denounce the war.

"So far today (Friday) we have arrested 116 people in connection with the anti-war protests and we expect that number to rise further," said San Francisco Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Eileen Hirst.

"What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!" the demonstrators chanted.

"It's depressing to me that a lot of people believe that because we have already gone to war, they think there's nothing we can do," said protester Jamie McHugh

"I am supporting the troops by asking them to be brought home," he added.

Like the 1,311 arrested a day earlier, most of the demonstrators picked up Friday were booked for blocking traffic or resisting arrest, Hirst said.

Detainees were taken to a warehouse on a pier near the city's famed Fisherman's Wharf area for booking as the city's law enforcement agencies battled to contain the series of rolling protests.

Organisers of the civil disobedience campaign have vowed they will continue blocking intersections and bridges, shackling themselves to street furniture and creating human cordons to snarl up traffic as long as the war continues.

But police vowed to stop them from blocking the city's main thoroughfares.

"We went from what I would call legal protests to absolute anarchy," San Francisco's Assistant Police Chief Alex Fagan said.

Since the war began three days ago, hundreds of anti-war rallies across the United States have swelled and intensified, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets, some paralysing traffic and clashing with police.

In Los Angeles, people including religious ministers were detained in an interfaith protest outside government buildings aimed at denouncing US policy towards Iraq, organisers said.

One of those arrested was Quaker official Shan Cretin, 56, a regional director of the American Friends Service Committee.

"I'm deeply distressed that our country that is so rich ... has such an impoverished way of dealing with foreign policy," she said.

Jesuit priest John Coleman, one of at least two religious leaders arrested, said the military action was "an unjust war, and one can't cooperate in unjust wars."

Further protests and arrests were expected across the United States on Friday and throughout the weekend.