European Military and Economic Blocs Hail Gulf Effort : Reaction: But anti-war protests draw tens of thousands, and police increase security precautions against possible terrorism.

The U.S.-led military operation against Iraq received strong endorsement from key European economic and defense alliances Thursday. But the prospect of a quick Iraqi defeat prompted police officials in many countries to increase security precautions against possible terrorist attacks.

The European Community and North Atlantic Treaty Organization met in emergency session Thursday to express support for the allied military action in the gulf. Operation Desert Storm also received support from the nine-nation Western European Union, a defense alliance.

Meanwhile, large anti-war demonstrations were staged in Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy, among other countries. Once again, the biggest and loudest were in Germany, where tens of thousands of protesters assembled in more than 15 cities.

In Berlin, a youthful crowd estimated by police at between 60,000 and 80,000 demonstrated near the Brandenburg Gate before they were dispersed. Several demonstrators were injured in the resulting melee, and police reported looting at the Kaufhaus des Westens, the city’s most famous luxury department store.

But the apparent early success of the lightning military attack by the United States and its allies was generally greeted with relief and satisfaction in Europe and other countries in the non-Arab world.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher predicted that the war “will finish in the defeat of the dictator.”

“Dictators don’t withdraw,” Thatcher said, “they have to be defeated.”

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, expressing his country’s regret that a peaceful resolution of the Persian Gulf crisis had not been found, said in a televised statement that he had called on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to commit Iraq to withdraw, immediately and unconditionally, from Kuwait in exchange for a halt in the allied offensive.

“It would allow a halt to the war and save Iraq from heavy losses and destruction,” Gorbachev said. “I expressed the hope that by realizing the supreme interests of his own people and the world community, Saddam Hussein would take this only step that could save him.”

Gorbachev reiterated the Soviet Union’s full support for the United Nations resolutions demanding Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait, describing the war as “a tragic turn provoked by the refusal of the Iraqi leadership to meet the demands of the international community.”

When hostilities began, the Soviet Union put its forces in the south of the country on a “high alert” status, noting that Iraq is only 175 miles from its borders. Moscow has declared repeatedly that its forces would not participate in the military actions against Iraq.

Alexander Belonogov, a deputy Soviet foreign minister, said that the Soviet Union now is particularly concerned that the conflict not spread, and he urged Turkey and Iran, two of Iraq’s neighbors bordering the Soviet Union, not to participate.

The Soviet Union’s longtime staunch ally, Cuban President Fidel Castro, did not necessarily agree with the Gorbachev analysis about the necessity of the conflict.

“At the outset there was a bet on war, not peace,” Castro said. “War won the bet.”

At the United Nations, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar downgraded the chances for diplomacy.

“For the time being . . . there’s not much I can do,” he said candidly. “I have to be hopeful that perhaps the Iraqis will decide to withdraw from Kuwait.”

Many European newspapers published “Extra” editions devoted to the gulf conflict, one of which, France Soir, boldly headlined: “The First Victory of Bush.”

The initial reports were so positive for the coalition forces that European commentators had already begun talking about the post-victory role of the United States in the so-called new world order.

“The problem of what succeeds the crisis will be upon us as soon as the crisis is over,” commented British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, who met Thursday afternoon with other leaders at the meeting of the European Economic Community in Paris.

However, the attack on Iraq also had a dark side as fear of Iraqi-sponsored terrorist reprisals pushed police officials to increase security in many European cities, particularly around American and Israeli facilities.

In Paris, for example, French police closed two streets running adjacent to the U.S. Embassy. The French Interior Ministry said 2,500 additional gendarmes were deployed in the French capital to guard against terrorism.

Governments across Western Europe on Thursday ordered tight security measures at airports and other potential targets of pro-Iraqi terrorists in order to protect what one anti-terrorist expert labeled a “second front” in the gulf war.

Hussein has threatened to launch a global terrorist campaign as part of his effort to counter the large multinational force deployed against him.

At Germany’s biggest airport in Frankfurt and at other airports in the country, police blocked all vehicles from stopping in front of terminal buildings, brought in extra X-ray equipment and conducted stringent security checks of passengers.

The federal Defense Ministry in Bonn issued a general instruction informing airline passengers that they may not be permitted to carry any electronic equipment in their luggage.

A heavy police and security presence helped implement these measures, but long delays developed at several points.

“We’ve been prepared for this situation for weeks,” said Hans Neusel, state secretary in the German Interior Ministry. “Since the outbreak of war, security measures have been strengthened at all levels.”

In Britain, security was also tight, with armed police patrolling Heathrow Airport. British police also detained 35 Iraqi nationals Thursday, bringing to 65 the number of Iraqis, mainly students, the Home Office says it has taken into custody and plans to deport for security reasons.

The British-owned Holiday Inn hotel chain also announced that it plans weekly evacuation drills at its 1,600 facilities around the world.

The picture was similar elsewhere in Europe.

“This second front to the war has been foreshadowed by threats from Palestinian and militant movements,” British anti-terrorist expert Paul Wilkinson told Reuters news agency.

So far, however, authorities in several European countries have stressed they have no specific evidence of terrorist activities, although Belgian authorities reported a flurry of bomb scares.

Safety measures were especially strong at U.S. military installations and embassies on the Continent, with several U.S. government schools, restaurants and community centers closing temporarily.

Police barriers erected outside many U.S. embassies and consulates functioned both as a security perimeter and to keep anti-war demonstrators at a distance.

In Germany, where the majority of European-based U.S. forces are located, special precautions were implemented. In Munich, two army installations were placed under 9 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew and private vehicles were banned from the base.

At Frankfurt’s Rhein-Main Air Base, where more than 100,000 U.S. troops transited briefly on their way to the gulf, security was also tight.

In addition to accelerating security precautions, officials also had to deal with anti-war demonstrations that sometimes erupted into violence.

In Brussels, about 1,000 protesters, most of them from leftist political parties, congregated across a wide boulevard from the U.S. Embassy. Two lines of police equipped with helmets, shields and sticks stood between them and the embassy.

The demonstrators carried signs demanding “No War for Oil” and “Stop Imperialistic Aggression in the Middle East.”

“The United States is killing people to preserve its oil reserves,” said Francois Vercammen, a member of the Socialist Workers Party. “This is probably the first war by the imperialistic countries against a Third World country that has been equipped militarily by the West.”

In Germany, demonstrations in more than 70 cities constituted the first significant stirring of a once-powerful peace movement that traumatized West Germany in the early 1980s with its opposition to deployment of medium-range nuclear missiles.

Organizers said more than 200,000 turned out for rallies under the motto, “Five minutes to 12”--the same slogan used by the movement in earlier years to depict the image of impending Armageddon.

In Hamburg, Munich, Hannover, Dresden, Frankfurt as well as Berlin, more than 10,000 marched through central city areas chanting slogans and carrying banners urging negotiations instead of war in the gulf.

In Berlin, where police said more than 60,000 took part, protesters marched peacefully through the downtown areas, but small groups of hooligans, known as autonoms, broke away from the main group and stoned three police cars and broke windows at four banks.

Police spokesman Rainer Hasdorf said 10 people were arrested.

In the western city of Stuttgart, protesters marched in the central areas before gathering at the American Consulate, where they laid a wreath for potential victims of a gulf war.

In the eastern German city of Dresden, demonstrators shouted, “Americans out of Arabia!” and “Embargo, not war!”, while in Frankfurt am Main, Social Democrat member of Parliament Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul told a rally of about 20,000 people, “Better a thousand days of negotiations than one day of war.”

As in the early 1980s, the protests were organized mainly by a coalition of Germany’s political left--Greens, Social Democrats, parts of the Protestant Church and trade unions.

Support for the U.S.-led air attack was unanimous in the 12-nation EC meeting Thursday afternoon in Paris although only two of its members, Britain and France, have participated directly in the fighting.

British aircraft joined American, Saudi and Kuwaiti planes in the initial wave of aerial attacks inside Iraq. A dozen French Jaguar aircraft flew alongside American fighter-bombers in an attack on Iraqi positions in occupied Kuwait.

Meeting in Brussels, the 16 ambassadors to NATO also stated their “solidarity and support for the enforcement of the U.N. Security Council resolutions by those whose forces are engaged in the region.”

NATO’s Defense Planning Committee backed up its support by sending minesweepers from four European allies--Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium--to the central Mediterranean. “This measure is intended to protect the safety of shipping and freedom of navigation in this vital area,” NATO said in a statement.

To the same end, the planning committee also decided that NATO’s Naval On-Call Force--eight destroyers and frigates--should conduct training and surveillance maneuvers in the Mediterranean. The eight ships are from eight nations: Britain, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the United States.

Times staff writers Michael Parks in Moscow, Joel Havemann in Brussels, Stanley Meisler in Barcelona, Spain, and John Goldman at the United Nations also contributed to this article.