Washington: Protesters today held sit-ins and demonstrations across the United States as they marked five years of war in Iraq, demanding an immediate withdrawal of US soldiers.

Police in Washington arrested 33 people for blocking entrances to the Internal Revenue Service, organisers and local media reported, as demonstrators sought to focus attention on taxpayers money that bankrolls the deployment of about 158,000 troops in Iraq.

"This war needs to end and it needs to end now," Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, told AFP.

In protests in San Francisco, police arrested more than a dozen people.

Demonstrators nationwide targeted government agencies, lawmakers, oil companies and "corporate media" who they accuse of promoting and sustaining the war, organisers said in a statement.

The protests went ahead as the death toll of US soldiers approaches 4,000 in a war that remains unpopular among American voters.

Hundreds of people showed up for events throughout Washington by midday and organisers expected "thousands" to attend rallies later in the day.

But public disapproval of the war has yet to translate into massive waves of street demonstrations in the United States like those seen during the Vietnam war.

Source : PTI