Hundreds took to the streets of Oakland yesterday in a march to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war -- an election-year protest by a crowd that displayed little enthusiasm for any of the candidates.

"Neither Obama nor Clinton are explicitly anti-war candidates. If you were to poll here I doubt you'd find anyone very happy with their positions," said David Meieran, one of the organizers of yesterday's rally, which began outside the Software Engineering Institute and continued with a march through the neighborhood ending with a memorial service on Flagstaff Hill in Schenley Park.

The crowd reached roughly 500, many of them students from area universities, a development organizers hailed as something of a breakthrough. Past anti-war protests have included some students, but about half of yesterday's gathering consisted of student peace organizations.

"A lot of these people are first-time people at marches," said John Clendaniel, a Lawrenceville resident who attends the University of Pittsburgh. "What you're seeing now is a growing radicalization against the war." He likened the arrival of a large student contingent to the mass movement that ended the Vietnam War a generation earlier.

The student contingent was to hold a rally and party later yesterday at a coffeehouse at Chatham College.

"I just want to get my opinion out there," said Emily Wilson, president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Student Peace Alliance.

A large police presence accompanied the march with 13 officers on horseback trailing the group as it traveled down Fifth Avenue, rounded a corner and then advanced up Forbes past the armed forces recruiting center, a frequent target of protests.

A contingent of anarchists who joined the march briefly paused on the sidewalk, adding the only fleeting moment of tension to the event.

"No recruiters in our town! Burn it down! Burn it down!" they chanted before moving past the half-dozen police who stood behind wooden barriers erected outside the door to the office.

Mr. Meieran, a volunteer with the anti-war committee of the Thomas Merton Center, one of the sponsors of yesterday's event, said the fifth anniversary is likely to mark the beginning of stepped-up targeting of various institutions, ranging from the military and defense contractors to the media, which anti-war activists have blamed for the conflict's continuation.

Taking aim at what they viewed as the commerce behind the war, the group has scheduled a screening for 4 p.m. today of a video titled "War Profiteering from Baghdad to Pittsburgh" at the Merton Center in Garfield.

SEI, which has received millions in defense grants and contracts, has been a target of anti-war protest for two decades and, as in other protests, was heavily guarded by university police who stood at the top of the steps to prevent intruders.

One frequent visitor was on hand yesterday, Vincent Scotti Eirene, a Manchester activist who has chained and sometimes starved himself at the center's doors. He remained largely anonymous in the crowd until speaker Mel Packer of the Merton Center singled him out for praise.

Although the march picked up extra members, not everyone was pleased to see it. Some students jeered from the windows of Litchfield Towers on the Pitt campus and even the mildly sympathetic thought the demand for an immediate U.S. pullout was dangerous.

"I think it'd be a humongous human rights disaster," said Greg Burdette, a political science major from suburban Philadelphia. "It was a mistake to go in there, but there would be a meltdown in the Middle East if we just left."

Some others didn't join because they were in the kind of spot Sam Dougherty was in, which was a bus stop at the intersection of Fifth and Bigelow.

"Sam, come on with us," pleaded a young woman.

"I gotta go to work," he pleaded.

Looking down the bus lane, Mr. Dougherty, a Pitt sophomore, realized the march had closed the street. Nothing on wheels was likely to be along for some time.

"I better start walking," he said, and began to stroll.