In Sudan, demonstrators rally against the U.S. missile attack

Also in this story:

• Arab League to meet Monday
• More threats against U.S.
• Suspected U.N. killers arrested
• The Lewinsky factor

KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) -- Thousands of anti-United States protesters again took to the streets of the Sudanese capital Saturday as the government was apparently seeking to rally a people weary of war and economic hardship against an American attack that destroyed a factory in Khartoum.

The demonstration came amid fresh anti-U.S. threats by fundamentalist extremist groups, and an announcement that the 22-member Arab League, currently chaired by Sudan, would hold an emergency meeting Monday to discuss the U.S. missile strikes. The U.N. Security Council also may discuss the issue.

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Ben Wedeman reports the latest developments from Sudan

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On Thursday, U.S. ships in the Red and Arabian seas fired dozens of cruise missiles at targets in Sudan and Afghanistan which the United States said were terrorist sites linked to Osama bin Laden, an Afghanistan-based Muslim militant suspected of financing and organizing this month's bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

More than 260 Americans, Kenyans and Tanzanians were killed in the embassy attacks, and more than 5,000 were wounded.

The U.S. Thursday attacked a plant in Sudan which Washington said was producing chemical weapons and an alleged terrorist training complex in eastern Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan.

On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators poured into central Khartoum to protest the missile strikes, which Sudan said had destroyed a factory that produced about half of the medicine in Sudan.

"Down, down USA," protesters shouted, some wearing military-style camouflage and singing nationalist songs as their vehicles waited in traffic backed up for miles.

Men shouted through megaphones and people held banners proclaiming: "No to killing of the innocent."

A similar protest already had been staged outside the office of President Omar el-Bashir on Friday after Muslim prayers, when protesters shouted anti-U.S. slogans and burned American flags.

Sudanese newspapers reported Saturday that the strike had caused $100 million worth of damage at the factory. Five Sudanese were reported seriously wounded.

The remains of the plant hit with U.S. cruise missiles

Factory manager Idris Babiker was quoted in the newspaper al-Usbuaa as saying the machinery in the factory was imported from the United States, Sweden, Britain and Switzerland.

Iraq released documents Saturday which it said showed that the United Nations had approved a $200,000 shipment of veterinary medicine to Iraq from the plant in Sudan.

The United Nations on Friday said the plant had provided medicine to Iraq under a U.N. program allowing Baghdad to buy food and medicine with oil proceeds.

Arab League to hold emergency talks

Many Arab countries have reacted with anger to news of the attack.

The Arab League said Saturday that it would hold an emergency meeting in Cairo on Monday to coordinate Arab support for Sudan.

A league official told Egyptian state television the league's permanent representatives would attend the meeting,

League sources said the organization's secretary-general, Esmat Abdel Meguid, had asked his representative in the United Nations to lobby Arab U.N. members to support a Sudanese call for an emergency Security Council meeting to discuss the U.S. strikes.

More extremist threats

Egypt's largest militant organization, Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, or Islamic Group, warned Saturday that the U.S. bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan was "a crime which will not go without punishment".

In a statement faxed to Western news agencies, Al-Jamaa called on Muslim militant organizations to respond to the U.S. attacks "in the language they understand," meaning violence.

A Kashmiri militant group, whose training camp was destroyed by U.S. missile strikes in eastern Afghanistan, also threatened to retaliate.

"The Americans and Jews should now prepare for their destruction," a military spokesman for Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Jammu and Kashmir group said in a statement faxed to Reuters news agency Saturday.

"The self-respecting Muslims of the world ... have announced they will wage a holy war against America," the statement said.

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Suspected U.N. killers arrested

Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban authorities said Saturday they had arrested the suspected killers of an Italian U.N. official shot on Friday.

"We have been informed by the Afghanistan embassy in Islamabad that the Taliban authorities in Kabul have now apprehended the perpetrators of the crime and have arraigned them before the Taliban military court," a U.N. statement said.

The body of army officer Carmine Calo, who died from his wounds Saturday morning, was flown from the Afghan capital of Kabul to Islamabad, U.N. officials said.

An Italian diplomat in Pakistan said the shooting was clearly in retaliation for the U.S. raids.

The Lewinsky factor

Several critics of the U.S. raids repeatedly stated that President Clinton launched the attacks to divert attention from his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern.

At the rally in Khartoum, the podium was decorated with pictures of Clinton and Lewinsky and bore the slogan, "Clinton: Screw Monica, not Sudan."

In Egypt, the Islamic Group issued a statement saying Clinton ordered the attack "to cover up the scandals of the White House and its humiliation."

Iraqi newspapers Saturday denounced the missile strikes, saying "a criminal and playboy president" ordered them to divert attention from the Lewinsky affair.