KHARTOUM - Anti-US protests by crowds whipped into fury
by an anti-Islam film erupted across the Muslim world on Friday, as
violence exploded in Sudan, Lebanon, Tunisia and Yemen leaving several
dead and dozens hurt.
The protests came after Muslims emerged from mosques in their thousands following the Jumma prayers to voice their anger at the film.
In Khartoum, Sudanese security forces used teargas against thousands of demonstrators, who stormed Western embassies, setting ablaze Germany’s mission, an AFP reporter said.
Around 5,000 protesters stormed the embassies of Britain and Germany, which was torched and badly damaged, he said, while a medic said two demonstrators died in clashes near the US diplomatic mission.
Guards on the roof of the American embassy fired warning shots as a security perimeter was breached and dozens of Islamic flag-waving protesters scaled an outer wall, an AFP reporter said.
A police vehicle near the embassy was also torched as hundreds of demonstrators broke through the outer security cordon.
Earlier, police fired teargas when several protesters scaled the roof of the German embassy and others attacked its facade, tearing down the flag to replace it with a black one.
The demonstrators - building up in numbers to an estimated 10,000 - threw stones after a large number of security forces blocked off roads leading to the US compound, sparking further volleys of teargas, the AFP journalist said.
One demonstrator was run down and killed by a police vehicle, a medic said, as security forces dispersed a group of stone-throwers.
In Berlin, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle condemned the “hate video” but said it was no excuse for an attack on his country’s embassy.
“I condemn the anti-Islamic hate video but still this cannot be a justification for the outbreak of violence,” he told
At least three people were killed and another 28 wounded in clashes at the US embassy in Tunis, which was stormed by an angry mob, official media said, citing the health ministry.
Two of the injured were in a critical condition, the same source said, without giving any details about the victims.
The protesters broke through into the compound of the US embassy, undeterred by volleys of teargas and warning shots fired by security forces, an AFP photographer reported.
The demonstrators, acting aggressively, managed to clamber over one of the walls round the mission, near the car park where several vehicles had been set ablaze, the photographer said.
A demonstrator was killed and 25 people hurt in clashes with police Friday after an angry crowd set fire to US fast food chains Hardee’s and KFC in northern Lebanon, a security source said.
Some 150 Muslim protesters gathered outside the US embassy in London and burned US and Israeli flags in protest, an AFP photographer said.
Demonstrators chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is the Greatest) and waved placards reading “Islam will destroy the falsehood” at the protest.
Around 10 members of the far-right English Defence League - which opposes the influence of Islam in Britain - also attended the heavily-policed and peaceful protest outside the central London embassy. One person was arrested, police said.
Meanwhile, Nigerian soldiers fired live rounds in the air outside a mosque in the flashpoint city of Jos on Friday to disperse a crowd planning protests over the US-made film, a spokesman said.
The soldiers “had to fire some warning shots in the air, but there were no casualties,” Captain Salihu Mustapha, military spokesman in Plateau state, told AFP, putting the crowd of mostly young people at several hundred. “The placards they were carrying were denouncing America,” he added.
In the Yemeni capital Sanaa, security forces fired warning shots and water cannon to disperse crowds of protesters trying to reach the US embassy, an AFP correspondent said.
Security forces blocked all roads leading to the mission, after similar confrontations left four people dead on Thursday.
The United States has deployed a Marine anti-terrorism unit to Yemen to help protect the American embassy in the face of angry demonstrations, the Pentagon said Friday.
“This is partly as a response to events over the past two days at our embassy in Yemen but it’s also in part a precautionary measure,” spokesman George Little told reporters.
“A FAST (Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team) platoon is now on the ground in Sanaa,” the Yemeni capital, with a contingent of about 50 US Marines, he said.
Hundreds of Afghan protesters took to the streets on Friday, setting fire to an effigy of US President Barack Obama and demanding the death of a filmmaker.
The demonstration passed off peacefully in the district of Ghanikhail in Nangarhar province, which borders Kabul to the west and Pakistan to the east.
Clerics in the Shinwari tribe called for a $100,000 bounty on the head of the producer of the film and torched the Obama effigy, said Zaher Ali deputy chief of the district’s council of clerics.
“Death to America”, and “death to the enemies of Islam”, shouted the crowd, according to an AFP photographer, in what are fairly routine chants at anti-US protests in Afghanistan.
Eighty-six people were arrested after a group of several hundred Muslim protesters threw stones and smashed windows at the US consulate in the Indian city of Chennai, police said.
“They smashed the window panes, surveillance camera and tried to scale over the compound wall, but we dispersed them while exercising restraint,” a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity. “We made 86 arrests.”
The violence flared during a protest organised by the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam.
The protesters also burnt an effigy of US President Barack Obama and an American flag, police said. One group hurled stones, while others lifted iron barricades placed in front of the main gate to smash windows, police said.
Meanwhile, Indian Held Kashmir’s most senior Islamic cleric has told all US citizens to “immediately leave” the region because of the privately-produced anti-Islam film that surfaced in the United States.
“US citizens visiting Held Kashmir should leave immediately as the sentiments of the Muslims have been hurt by these pictures,” the Grand Mufti, Bashiruddin Ahmad said Thursday, the Press Trust of India reported.
“Everyone accepts the greatness of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and any attempt to malign his image will not be tolerated,” the news agency quoted him as saying.
Hundreds of lawyers shouted anti-US slogans and went on strike on Friday in Srinagar.
Protesters in Cairo early Friday again clashed with police outside the US embassy for a fourth straight day, although calm returned later in the day after the Muslim Brotherhood withdrew a call for nationwide demonstrations, saying it wanted to avoid loss of life and damage to property.
The Brotherhood’s about-turn came after Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said during a visit to Rome on Friday that the film is an “aggression” on Islam that distracts from the real problems of the Middle East.
“We cannot accept this type of aggression and attempt to sow discord. These irresponsible actions yield no good and draw attention away from real problems like the conflict in Syria, the fate of the Palestinians and the lack of stability in the Middle East,” Mursi said.
Thousands of people yelling “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” meanwhile rallied in the centre of Tehran to protest the anti-Islam film.
State television showed the crowd streaming out after Jumma prayers at Tehran University in which a cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, blamed the United States for the crude film.
“It is a wonder how those running a country claiming to be a superpower become so stupid in taking such actions,” he said.
“In their recent lunacy, they have made a movie - whose finances are said to be paid by the Zionists - to insult the Prophet (PBUH),” he said. The crowd responded by chanting “Death to America.”
Protests have spread across the Middle East and further afield, including to Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kashmir, Iraq, Israel and the Gaza Strip and Kuwait.
US and Libyan officials meanwhile are probing Tuesday’s attack on the consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi that killed the ambassador and three other US officials, amid growing speculation it was the work of the militants rather than just demonstrators.
Two of the four Americans killed in the assault were former members of the elite Navy SEALs officials identified as Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. The harrowing attack also left Ambassador Chris Stevens and Sean Smith, an information management officer, dead.
US Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney spoke out Friday against the makers of the American-made film, saying it was “a terrible idea” but backing US free speech rights.
Romney said it was wrong for producers of the film at the centre of many anti-American protests that have rocked the Middle East and North Africa, to put out a movie that would offends peoples’ faith.
“I think the whole film is a terrible idea,” Romney said in an interview on ABC that aired early Friday. “I think him making it, promoting it, showing it, is disrespectful to people of other faiths. I don’t think that should happen. I think people should have the common courtesy and judgment - the good judgment - not to offend other people’s faiths.”
UN leader Ban Ki-moon condemned the “hateful” anti-Islam film as deliberately intended to incite bigotry.
Ban is “deeply disturbed” by the eruption of deadly anti-US violence in Libya and other Middle East countries caused by the film, a UN spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci said.
“Nothing justifies such killings and attacks. He condemns the hateful film that appears to have been deliberately designed to sow bigotry and bloodshed,” the spokeswoman added.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday the blasphemous film is a provocation against Muslims but should not be used as a pretext for violence.
“This is a strong provocation against our way of life,” Erdogan said in a speech at a conference in the Ukrainian Black Sea resort of Yalta.
“Insulting the Prophet (PBUH) cannot be justified as freedom of expression. Religion and the Prophet (PBUH) are sacred values and are untouchable.”
But he added: “It cannot be a reason for innocent people to be attacked or harmed.
Meanwhile, Germany said Friday it had stepped up security at its diplomatic missions in the Muslim world in the wake of violent protests touched off by a film mocking Islam posted on the Internet.
“The foreign ministry has bolstered security measures at embassies and consulates in Islamic countries,” the ministry told AFP in an email in response to a query about a media report that Germany had closed embassies.
“We cannot provide details about individual measures for security reasons.”
The protests came after Muslims emerged from mosques in their thousands following the Jumma prayers to voice their anger at the film.
In Khartoum, Sudanese security forces used teargas against thousands of demonstrators, who stormed Western embassies, setting ablaze Germany’s mission, an AFP reporter said.
Around 5,000 protesters stormed the embassies of Britain and Germany, which was torched and badly damaged, he said, while a medic said two demonstrators died in clashes near the US diplomatic mission.
Guards on the roof of the American embassy fired warning shots as a security perimeter was breached and dozens of Islamic flag-waving protesters scaled an outer wall, an AFP reporter said.
A police vehicle near the embassy was also torched as hundreds of demonstrators broke through the outer security cordon.
Earlier, police fired teargas when several protesters scaled the roof of the German embassy and others attacked its facade, tearing down the flag to replace it with a black one.
The demonstrators - building up in numbers to an estimated 10,000 - threw stones after a large number of security forces blocked off roads leading to the US compound, sparking further volleys of teargas, the AFP journalist said.
One demonstrator was run down and killed by a police vehicle, a medic said, as security forces dispersed a group of stone-throwers.
In Berlin, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle condemned the “hate video” but said it was no excuse for an attack on his country’s embassy.
“I condemn the anti-Islamic hate video but still this cannot be a justification for the outbreak of violence,” he told
At least three people were killed and another 28 wounded in clashes at the US embassy in Tunis, which was stormed by an angry mob, official media said, citing the health ministry.
Two of the injured were in a critical condition, the same source said, without giving any details about the victims.
The protesters broke through into the compound of the US embassy, undeterred by volleys of teargas and warning shots fired by security forces, an AFP photographer reported.
The demonstrators, acting aggressively, managed to clamber over one of the walls round the mission, near the car park where several vehicles had been set ablaze, the photographer said.
A demonstrator was killed and 25 people hurt in clashes with police Friday after an angry crowd set fire to US fast food chains Hardee’s and KFC in northern Lebanon, a security source said.
Some 150 Muslim protesters gathered outside the US embassy in London and burned US and Israeli flags in protest, an AFP photographer said.
Demonstrators chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is the Greatest) and waved placards reading “Islam will destroy the falsehood” at the protest.
Around 10 members of the far-right English Defence League - which opposes the influence of Islam in Britain - also attended the heavily-policed and peaceful protest outside the central London embassy. One person was arrested, police said.
Meanwhile, Nigerian soldiers fired live rounds in the air outside a mosque in the flashpoint city of Jos on Friday to disperse a crowd planning protests over the US-made film, a spokesman said.
The soldiers “had to fire some warning shots in the air, but there were no casualties,” Captain Salihu Mustapha, military spokesman in Plateau state, told AFP, putting the crowd of mostly young people at several hundred. “The placards they were carrying were denouncing America,” he added.
In the Yemeni capital Sanaa, security forces fired warning shots and water cannon to disperse crowds of protesters trying to reach the US embassy, an AFP correspondent said.
Security forces blocked all roads leading to the mission, after similar confrontations left four people dead on Thursday.
The United States has deployed a Marine anti-terrorism unit to Yemen to help protect the American embassy in the face of angry demonstrations, the Pentagon said Friday.
“This is partly as a response to events over the past two days at our embassy in Yemen but it’s also in part a precautionary measure,” spokesman George Little told reporters.
“A FAST (Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team) platoon is now on the ground in Sanaa,” the Yemeni capital, with a contingent of about 50 US Marines, he said.
Hundreds of Afghan protesters took to the streets on Friday, setting fire to an effigy of US President Barack Obama and demanding the death of a filmmaker.
The demonstration passed off peacefully in the district of Ghanikhail in Nangarhar province, which borders Kabul to the west and Pakistan to the east.
Clerics in the Shinwari tribe called for a $100,000 bounty on the head of the producer of the film and torched the Obama effigy, said Zaher Ali deputy chief of the district’s council of clerics.
“Death to America”, and “death to the enemies of Islam”, shouted the crowd, according to an AFP photographer, in what are fairly routine chants at anti-US protests in Afghanistan.
Eighty-six people were arrested after a group of several hundred Muslim protesters threw stones and smashed windows at the US consulate in the Indian city of Chennai, police said.
“They smashed the window panes, surveillance camera and tried to scale over the compound wall, but we dispersed them while exercising restraint,” a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity. “We made 86 arrests.”
The violence flared during a protest organised by the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam.
The protesters also burnt an effigy of US President Barack Obama and an American flag, police said. One group hurled stones, while others lifted iron barricades placed in front of the main gate to smash windows, police said.
Meanwhile, Indian Held Kashmir’s most senior Islamic cleric has told all US citizens to “immediately leave” the region because of the privately-produced anti-Islam film that surfaced in the United States.
“US citizens visiting Held Kashmir should leave immediately as the sentiments of the Muslims have been hurt by these pictures,” the Grand Mufti, Bashiruddin Ahmad said Thursday, the Press Trust of India reported.
“Everyone accepts the greatness of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and any attempt to malign his image will not be tolerated,” the news agency quoted him as saying.
Hundreds of lawyers shouted anti-US slogans and went on strike on Friday in Srinagar.
Protesters in Cairo early Friday again clashed with police outside the US embassy for a fourth straight day, although calm returned later in the day after the Muslim Brotherhood withdrew a call for nationwide demonstrations, saying it wanted to avoid loss of life and damage to property.
The Brotherhood’s about-turn came after Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said during a visit to Rome on Friday that the film is an “aggression” on Islam that distracts from the real problems of the Middle East.
“We cannot accept this type of aggression and attempt to sow discord. These irresponsible actions yield no good and draw attention away from real problems like the conflict in Syria, the fate of the Palestinians and the lack of stability in the Middle East,” Mursi said.
Thousands of people yelling “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” meanwhile rallied in the centre of Tehran to protest the anti-Islam film.
State television showed the crowd streaming out after Jumma prayers at Tehran University in which a cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, blamed the United States for the crude film.
“It is a wonder how those running a country claiming to be a superpower become so stupid in taking such actions,” he said.
“In their recent lunacy, they have made a movie - whose finances are said to be paid by the Zionists - to insult the Prophet (PBUH),” he said. The crowd responded by chanting “Death to America.”
Protests have spread across the Middle East and further afield, including to Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kashmir, Iraq, Israel and the Gaza Strip and Kuwait.
US and Libyan officials meanwhile are probing Tuesday’s attack on the consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi that killed the ambassador and three other US officials, amid growing speculation it was the work of the militants rather than just demonstrators.
Two of the four Americans killed in the assault were former members of the elite Navy SEALs officials identified as Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. The harrowing attack also left Ambassador Chris Stevens and Sean Smith, an information management officer, dead.
US Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney spoke out Friday against the makers of the American-made film, saying it was “a terrible idea” but backing US free speech rights.
Romney said it was wrong for producers of the film at the centre of many anti-American protests that have rocked the Middle East and North Africa, to put out a movie that would offends peoples’ faith.
“I think the whole film is a terrible idea,” Romney said in an interview on ABC that aired early Friday. “I think him making it, promoting it, showing it, is disrespectful to people of other faiths. I don’t think that should happen. I think people should have the common courtesy and judgment - the good judgment - not to offend other people’s faiths.”
UN leader Ban Ki-moon condemned the “hateful” anti-Islam film as deliberately intended to incite bigotry.
Ban is “deeply disturbed” by the eruption of deadly anti-US violence in Libya and other Middle East countries caused by the film, a UN spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci said.
“Nothing justifies such killings and attacks. He condemns the hateful film that appears to have been deliberately designed to sow bigotry and bloodshed,” the spokeswoman added.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday the blasphemous film is a provocation against Muslims but should not be used as a pretext for violence.
“This is a strong provocation against our way of life,” Erdogan said in a speech at a conference in the Ukrainian Black Sea resort of Yalta.
“Insulting the Prophet (PBUH) cannot be justified as freedom of expression. Religion and the Prophet (PBUH) are sacred values and are untouchable.”
But he added: “It cannot be a reason for innocent people to be attacked or harmed.
Meanwhile, Germany said Friday it had stepped up security at its diplomatic missions in the Muslim world in the wake of violent protests touched off by a film mocking Islam posted on the Internet.
“The foreign ministry has bolstered security measures at embassies and consulates in Islamic countries,” the ministry told AFP in an email in response to a query about a media report that Germany had closed embassies.
“We cannot provide details about individual measures for security reasons.”
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