Mass Protests Intensify Across Muslim World

By Al Jazeera English

14 September 12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saEfWvSioPk

Violent protests in Tunisia, Yemen, Sudan and elsewhere as crowds target US, UK and German embassies.

rotesters have attacked Western embassies in Tunisia, Yemen and Sudan, as a wave of demonstrations against an anti-Islam film swelled and swept across much of the Muslim world after Friday prayers.

The US embassy was the common target while the UK and German embassies in Sudan were stormed by angry mobs.

In Tunis, the Tunisian capital, two people were killed in clashes with the police as crowds scaled the US embassy walls and set fire to trees within the compound. An American school was also set on fire by an angry mob.

In Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, protesters stormed the UK and German embassies and raised Islamist flags. Protesters smashed windows, cameras and furniture in the German complex and then started a fire, witnesses said.

Throngs of crowds also targeted the US embassy in the capital. They breached the outside wall of the compound, forcing guards to fire warning shots. Three people were killed in clashes.

Al Jazeera's Harriet Martin, reporting from Khartoum, said: "The Sudanese authorities are taking things very seriously as they have deployed many, many riot police in the direction of the US embassy.

Three protesters were killed in clashes with the police in Khartoum while two other were killed in similar demonstrations in Lebanon.

Protesters also clashed with police in Yemen while they attempted to storm the US embassy. Four people were reportedly killed in the ensuing clashes.

"Today is your last day, ambassador", and "America is the devil", some placards carried by the protesters said.

Crowds also gathered against the California-made film for the second day in Malaysia, Bangladesh and Iraq.

Jay Carney, a White House spokesperson, said they were monitoring events in the Muslim world.

"President Obama is following events, the violence is not justifiable, the President is making sure in his conversations with leaders in the region that the safety of US representation is respected in their countries," said Carney.

Insulting Film

Demonstrators furious at the trailer of the film made in the US they say insults the Prophet Muhammad also clashed with police near the US embassy in Cairo.

Reporting from Egypt, Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh said protesters belonging to ultra-conservative groups in Sinai stormed a camp for the UN multinational peacekeepers in Sheikh Zuwayed town. They brought down the flag and placed a black banner with the words "There's no God but Allah, Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah."

In Gaza, thousands of people rallied at demonstrations in Gaza City and the southern town of Rafah, a day after the ruling Hamas party urged citizens to turn out for protests after Friday prayers.

Protesters waved the flags of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements, and set fire to American flags, chanting "Death, death to America, death, death to Israel".

The film was blamed for an attack on the US consulate in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans on Tuesday, the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks on the United States.

Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid, reporting from Benghazi, said: "There is a lot of tension in Benghazi people are confused, they want to protest, but after what took at the US consulate, people are apprehensive, Libyan authorities still believe it was a planned attack at the embassy".

In Nigeria, where radical Islamist sect Boko Haram has killed hundreds this year in an insurgency, troops opened fire in the air outside a mosque to disperse protesters in the city of Jos.

Challenge for Obama

The protests present US President Barack Obama with a new foreign policy crisis less than two months before seeking re-election and tests Washington's relations with democratic governments it helped to power across the Arab world.

Obama has vowed to bring those responsible for the Benghazi attack to justice, and the United States sent warships towards Libya which one official said was to give flexibility for any future action.

The ruling Muslim Brotherhood said it would organise marches and sit-ins in front of mosques - but none outside the US embassy in Cairo.Egypt has said the US government, which has condemned the film, should not be blamed for it, but has also urged Washington to take legal action against those insulting religion.

After talks with Italian leaders in Rome, President Mohammed Morsi reiterated his government's determination to protect foreign diplomats on its soil. He also condemned the film as unacceptable.

In Libya, authorities said they had made four arrests in the investigation into the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens. US officials said it may have been planned in advance - possibly by an al-Qaeda-linked group.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said Washington had nothing to do with the crudely made film posted on the Internet,which she called "disgusting and reprehensible", and the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff called a Christian pastor in Florida to ask him to withdraw his support for it.

The online video depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a womaniser and leader of a group of men who enjoy killing.

Egypt's Coptic Orthodox church has condemned what it said were Copts abroad who had financed the film.

Map of protests and embassy attacks across Muslim world.
(photo: Google Maps/John)