Chanting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans, hundreds of people demonstrated outside the Qatari embassy in Cairo Saturday to protest a new military agreement between the emirate and Washington.
Several of the protestors, who included Egyptians, other Arabs and Westerners, tried in vain to break through police lines to reach the embassy in the southern Cairo neighborhood of Mohandeseen, according to police.
They denounced the United States and Israel as the "common enemy" of the Arabs, and accused Qatar and Kuwait of "complicity" in US-led war plans against Iraq, AFP reported.
Over 1,000 riot police surrounded the embassy and neighboring streets to monitor the protest, which was organized by several Egyptian leftist groups.
On December 11, United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed a new defense pact with Qatar to formalize the presence of around 4,000 US soldiers at the Al-Udeid airbase. (Albawaba.com)
