Algeria's 32 million people appeared largely indifferent in the diplomatic build-up to the conflict, but the outbreak of war has prompted outrage against what has been described in the local press as the "crazed hegemony" of US President George W. Bush.

People in this almost entirely Muslim former French colony have been galvanized by calls from their imams for a "jihad" or holy war to combat a "crusade against Islam" launched by the United States.

On Friday, the main prayer day for Muslims, imams in Algiers lashed out against the "crusading aggressors", calling on their faithful to "raise up your heads" and to "die standing up rather than living flat on your stomach."

Hundreds of people confronted riot police at a demonstration in Algiers over the US-led war on Thursday, boldly defying a ban on street demonstrations that has been imposed since six people were killed in protests in June 2001.

In Algeria's second city of Oran on Thursday, the crowds hurled stones into the consulate of Spain, one of the staunchest European supporters of the US strikes against Iraq.

"Algerians did not show their support (for Iraq) before the start of hostilities, because right until the end, they believed that the war would not take place and the United States was making a show of force solely to intimidate President Saddam Hussein," says Redouane, a teacher of history at a secondary school in Algiers.

"In any case he (Saddam) was starting to make concessions and accept the conditions of the United Nations," the teacher adds.

According to Chaker El Falahi, the spokesman of Iraq's embassy in Algiers, many Algerians have now volunteered to fight on Baghdad's side in Iraq.

In what has become a ritual, groups of people gather in the morning and the evening around 8 pm to watch the latest satellite television news from Iraq from both the Arabic Al-Jazeera and French channels.

The groups express their scorn for Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and make no attempt to disguise their admiration for Jacques Chirac, president of former colonial ruler France, which has strictly opposed the war.

According to Redouane, "the heroic resistance of the Iraqis and their courage" against a far superior invading force has impressed even the most impassioned opponents of Saddam's Baath party in Algeria.

They do not support "Saddam and the Baath party, but the Iraqis unjustly attacked and aggressed in their own country, whose behaviour demands admiration," the teacher said.

The country's newspapers have also adopted an impassioned stance against the war since the conflict broke out.

Under the headline "Baghdad under bombardment", Le Matin newspaper wrote last week that "no country is safe from Bush's crazed hegemony."

The war in Iraq was being waged "against global public opinion" with the aim of "returning us to the dark ages when might ruled," the paper said.

WAR.WIRE