The demonstration by Cindy Sheehan, 48, has provoked a fierce counter-campaign by the president's backers, who call her an extremist.

She has demanded to meet Bush and vows to maintain her protest until he returns to Washington from his summer break in a few weeks.

As her vigil reached its 12th day Thursday after hundreds of candlelight vigils across the United States, Sheehan, a Californian, was set to move her camp and multiplying supporters and other bereaved parents more than a kilometer closer to the president's Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford.

Army veteran Fred Mattlage has asked her to use a corner of his plot.

``I think people should have a right to protest without being harassed,'' he said. ``I'm against the war. I don't think it's a war we need to be in.''

Nicknamed ``Attila the Honey'' by admiring friends, Sheehan and scores of supporters had shuffled through baking conditions as they started moving tents, anti-Bush banners and portable lavatories in time for their nightly candlelit prayer vigil.

In their wake came the ranks of camera crews and reporters who have made Sheehan the biggest domestic story of America's hot summer of 2005 and a nightly feature on news bulletins.

Her 24-year-old son, Casey, a soldier, was killed in Baghdad in April last year during his first fortnight in Iraq. She then became an anti-war activist, but decided to confront the president only when his holiday began.

She has since become the focal point for opponents of the war, whose numbers are growing as casualties increase. The president's supporters say Sheehan is an extremist who has branded the Bush administration a terrorist organization and its policies as genocidal and fascist.

Her words now fill the right-wing Web sites run by Bush backers clearly troubled by the ability of one articulate woman to put the president on the defensive. ``Our country,'' she said in one speech, ``has been overtaken by murderous thugs, gangsters who lust after fortunes and power; never caring that their addictions are at the expense of our loved ones and the blood of innocent people, near and far.''

In one interview, Sheehan said Bush led the largest terrorist organization in the world. ``I believe he's responsible for the needless and senseless deaths of more people than any other organization right now.''

Such talk has fueled pro-war organizations that are planning demonstrations to make their support heard in Crawford.

A darker campaign is also continuing on the Internet, with tales about Sheehan's divided family. Some relatives have asked her to stop ``dishonoring'' Casey's name. Her husband Patrick is divorcing her and her other son has asked her to go home.

Bush's media handlers are in a difficult position.

``If the president meets with her,'' one said, ``does he have to meet with every protester who camps out in Crawford or in Lafayette Park in Washington? Does he have a second meeting with every mother or wife who asks for one?'' THE DAILY TELEGRAPH