Indonesia's Muslims pray for peace

Over 500,000 Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) followers turned out at the parade ground inside the Brawijaya Military Command headquarters (Makodam) in Surabaya on Sunday for the largest rally so far in the country against a possible United States attack on Iraq and also to the country's worsening political situation in the face of the 2004 general election.

Separately, still on Sunday, hundreds of Muslims from greater Jakarta, after gathered at the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta to listen to a sermon by Muslim preacher Abdullah "Aa Gym" Gymnastiar, the head of the Daarut Tauhid Islamic boarding school in West Java, traveled to the U.S. embassy to hand over a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush. In that letter, Aa Gym warned the President of a further loss of credibility in the eyes of the international community if he continue to insist on forcibly disarming Iraq.