Cairo, May 07: Around 300 Egyptian islamists have rallied here in anger over the killing of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden by US forces.
After the Friday prayers at a Salafist mosque in eastern Cairo, the crowd headed for the US Embassy. However, they were blocked by security forces before they could reach it.
The demonstrators started the protest by unfurling a banner bearing a picture of Osama and the line “Osama is a symbol of the jihad.” They also chanted “Obama is the terrorist, not Osama”.
One man bore an inscription on his shirt saying, “We are all bin Laden.”
Salafists are a highly conservative current of Islam that believes Muslims should return to the practices of their first forbears. They are mostly peaceful, but the sect’s ideology has also inspired militants such as Osama.
Saudi-born Osama, the most-wanted fugitive on the US list, had been killed on Monday in an American operation in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
-Agencies