Jakarta – About 100 Indonesian Islamic activists on Friday protested US military attacks on the Iraqi holy city of Najaf by burning the American flag and a dollar bill outside the country's embassy.

"Not only souls and oil have been taken by the United States. Even something sacred for the Islamic community has been trodden on," said a statement from the Islam Anti-Imperialist Coalition, which groups students and others.

It said Najaf is "the breath of the Islamic community" and demanded that the United States and its allies withdraw from Iraq.

"Attack on US now," said one banner carried by theprotesters.

US forces conducted an intense overnight bombardment of radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr's militia in the Najaf.

US and Iraqi government forces have been locked in a fierce standoff with the cleric's rebels there for more than two weeks.

Sadr's forces have taken over as their military headquarters Najaf's Imam Ali mausoleum, one of the holiest Shiite pilgrimage sites in the world. Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim nation.