Anti-war protesters brought traffic to a standstill today as they chained themselves to-gether across a main road in Bradford.

The peace campaigners blocked Leeds Road in response to the overnight attacks on Baghdad.

The group, of about 30 from a cross-section of the community, gathered at about 8.15am, and five formed a human chain across the busy route into Bradford city centre.

They were peacefully removed by police after about an hour.

Clerk Alan Horne, of Horsforth, said he was brought to tears when he saw war break out.

"I'm a granddad with two grandchildren and if anything ever happened to them it would kill me. The point is there are people like me in Iraq who will be losing their loved ones and that's why I'm here today," said the 47-year-old.

"I can't walk into a shop in Bradford with a gun and de-mand money and get away with it so why can Tony Blair go to war illegally?"

Student Jenny Korz, 24, from Germany, who is studying Peace Studies at Bradford Uni-versity, was one of the human blockade which caused com-muter chaos with traffic backed up to Thornbury roundabout.

"The majority of people are against this war so why is it go-ing ahead?" she asked.

Heather Blakey, 27, of Man-ningham, who works at the Peace Studies department, said: "Life is far from normal in Iraq and that's what the point of our protest is - to make sure life is not normal here."

Dance student Emelie, 19, who moved to England from Sweden in September, said she was horrified to see war had broken out.

"Sweden has not been to war for 200 years, we are a peaceful country and being over here makes it seem very, very real," she said.

"It is very frightening but it's good to be a part of the peace protests."

Campaigners handed out fly-ers, coffee and biscuits to driv-ers to show that the action was not aimed at them.

Solicitor James Burrows said he applauded the protesters for making a stand.

"It has made my journey to work a lot longer but this is war we're talking about, it's se-rious stuff and people should be able to say what they feel," said the 35-year-old.

Police described the demon-stration as good-natured and peaceful. No arrests were made.

About 200 students, many from Guiseley School, also held a demonstration on a roundabout near Aireborough Leisure Cen-tre.

Organiser James Roberts, 17, a student at Guiseley School, said there was great disappointment that the war had started despite the strength of feeling against it.

"Blair has got to realise that the anti-war movement won't go away," he said. "It is impor-tant that there is opposition to policies that we think are wrong."

The protest follows a demon-stration in Centenary Square in the city centre when dozens of young people walked out of school in protest against the war and marched into the city.

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