Hundreds Protest Across Asia, Clash With Police Over U.S. Anti-Islam Video
Fresh protests were raging in several Middle Eastern countries on Monday over the anti-Islam film produced in the U.S., with fatal clashes with police leaving at least one person dead.
Incidents were reported in northwest Pakistan, at a U.S. embassy in Indonesia, and a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, where hundreds of people burned cars and threw rocks in Kabul, shouting anti-American chants and calling for the makers of the controversial film to die. Fox News reported that police shot in the air to hold back the 800 or so protesters at the military base, who also targeted government buildings in the downtown city area.
The clashes continue a wave of violence that started last week over the anti-Islam film, which resulted in the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, with Muslim mobs attacking U.S. facilities also in Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia.
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In the attacks on Afghanistan on Monday, 20 police officers were reported to have been injured from being hit by rocks, although Daoud Amin, the deputy police chief for Kabul province, announced that the protests dispersed after demonstrators spread out to other areas of the capital.
The "Innocence of Muslims" film said to be the cause of the upheaval apparently portrays Muhammad, the founder of Islam, in a very derogatory manner. The low-budget YouTube movie has been condemned by the Obama administration and major religious authorities, from Muslim clerics to the Roman Catholic pope.
Wahidullah Hotak, one of the men protesting the anti-Islam film in Afghanistan, said that the protests will not stop until those who made the film are arrested and brought to trial.
"Our responsibility is to show a peaceful reaction, to hold peaceful protests. Do not harm people, their property or public property," urged Karimullah Saqib, a cleric in Kabul.
In Pakistan, protests were focused against a press club in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province's Upper Dir district, apparently because the Islamist mobs were angry that their protests were not getting enough coverage. Clashes with police later on Monday resulted in a senior government official having to lock himself inside a police station with several other people for their protection.
Pakistanis were apparently angry that earlier clashes with police at a U.S. consulate in the southern city of Karachi that left one Islamist dead and several others wounded were not widely reported on.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, people again clashed with the police and set tires on fire at the U.S. embassy there. Ten police officers were reportedly rushed to the hospital along with four protesters, but there were no reports of casualties.
"We will destroy America like this flag!" protesters apparently said, and burned a picture of U.S. President Barack Obama and an American flag. "We will chase away the American ambassador from the country!"
U.S. officials expressed last that they believe the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Libya at least to have been planned in advance, since they coincided with the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the U.S.
Ansar al Sharia, which translates as "Supporters of Islamic Law," is one of the groups suspected of co-coordinating the attacks, along with an al-Qaida-linked group called the Islamic Maghreb.
