Anti-Muslim Rally in Garland

Protesters jammed the streets and jeered at cars full of ticket holders to a convention on the prophet Mohammed held Saturday at an events center in Garland, a Dallas suburb.

Siraj Wahhaj, a New York imam once suspected of supporting the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was the conference's keynote speaker.

"Go back to your own countries! We don't want you here!" chanted a woman with tidy gray hair and fashionable sunglasses.

The night before, demonstrators opposed to the event hurled slurs and insults at Muslims leaving a local mosque, the event's organizers say.

A man with a bullhorn read out the license plate number of every car that pulled into the events center's parking lot and repeated called Mohammed a pedophile.

He also upbraided Muslim women in high-heel shoes.

"Why love a religion that could kill you for dressing like that," he said to a young woman in hijab and fire-engine red heels. She smiled awkwardly and walked away.

Another man used the bullhorn to declare that he had traveled from Florida to attend the conference and had a ticket but was turned away because he is a Jew.

"Touch the Jew flag. Don't you want to?" a man holding the Israeli flag asked.

"A Muslim in a cowboy hat. Now you're pushing it, pal. Now you're pushing it," said another woman of one of the event staff.

The dozen or so supporters were dwarfed by the hundreds of opponents.

The demonstrators arrived hours early in trucks and motorcycles bearing Texas and American flags, handmade posters and T-shirts with messages on the back.

Inside the room was serene. But the media were shut out before the Wahhaj could speak.