More than 200 people protested in Pakistan against...

More than 200 people protested in Pakistan against the scheduled execution of a Pakistani convicted of murdering two CIA staff in the United States. The protesters in the central city of Multan denounced the planned execution of Mir Aimal Kansi on November 14 in Virginia as "inhuman" and warned of a strong reaction. "There will be an extremely horrible reaction in the Islamic world if Aimal Kansi is executed and it will be strongly resisted," said a statement issued after the protest led by religious and political groups. It did not elaborate. The protesters chanted anti-US slogans and called for the withdrawal of the sentence against Kansi. The State Department warned that Kansi's execution could trigger retaliatory attacks on US or other foreign interests overseas. Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its war on terror and has granted permission for the US military to use three remote air bases for logistics for its military operations in neighbouring Afghanistan. Kansi is a native of the southwestern province of Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and is a stronghold of hardline Islamic groups that made stunning gains in national elections in October by exploiting anger against the US campaign in Afghanistan. Kansi was convicted in 1997 of the 1993 killings of Lansing Bennett, 66, a physician and intelligence analyst, and Frank Darling, 28, an undercover agent, in a shooting spree with an AK-47 assault rifle outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Three other people were wounded. Kansi fled to Pakistan a day after the shootings. He was captured there by US agents and Pakistani counterparts in June 1997 and confessed on the flight back to the United States. He said during his trial that he had been retaliating against US policies that hurt Muslim states.