The protestors gathered in the sprawling Monas square facing the US embassy, guarded by police wielding batons and shields.

Crowd estimates varied: the Central Jakarta police put the number at around 200,000, witnesses said 300,000 were present, while organisers claimed more than three million people showed up.

Thousands more were streaming into the venue from many directions as the organisers officially closed the rally at 11:00 am, about 60 minutes after it started. No violence was reported.

"Our message is very clear, the message of the Indonesian society is ... stop the war now," Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) general secretary Dien Syamsuddin said in an address to the crowd.

Other speakers included National Assembly chairman Amien Rais, one of his deputies, Andi Mappetahang Fatwa, and MUI chairman Hamidan, who uses one name.

An older sister of President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Rachmawati, was also present as well as several religious leaders.

The participants, many of them veiled mothers with their children, displayed anti-war posters and banners and yelled "Allah is Great". Others chanted religious verses.

"Stop the invasion of Iraq," "No war for Oil," and "Stop the slaughter of the people of Iraq," some of the posters read. Many urged the United Nations to be more assertive in its opposition to the war.

The rally organisers, the Indonesian Solidarity Committee for Iraqi People -- a coalition of several Muslim organisations including the second largest Islamic movement, the Muhammadiyah and the MUI which groups the nation's top clerics, said they had expected about one million protesters.

The crowd included several Christian and Protestant leaders and youth groups, but most of the participants were Muslims wearing white dress.

Many carried the flag of the Justice Party, a small but vocal radical Muslim political group, as well as those of other political parties and organisations.

Police said around 600 personnel, including one company of about 100 women police, were present around the embassy and -- because of the size of the protest -- the road in front of the embassy was closed to traffic.

Members of the Muslim-oriented United Development Party for Reform carried a 100-meter (-yard) long light green piece of cloth, inscribed with the words "Stop the massacre in Iraq" to the site.

People crowded around the banner to put their signatures on it.

In another anti-war protest Sunday some 400 members of the civilian guard and youth movement of the country's largest Muslim organisation, the Nahdlatul Ulamain, gathered in front of the US consulate in Surabaya, East Java and burned an effigy of US President George W. Bush.

In the staunch Muslim province of Aceh, nine youth and Islamic organisations issued a statement calling on the UN to work harder to halt the war and drag Bush and leaders of his allied states to the international court of justice as war criminals.

Indonesia has seen daily protests against the US-led war on Iraq in most of its major cities.

Jakarta has strongly criticised the Iraq war and has been in the forefront of efforts to seek an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council or of the General Assembly to call a halt to the attack.

WAR.WIRE