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.”
