Mobs target US buildings

As Pope Benedict speaks out in Lebanon against religious fundamentalism, Arab protesters vent their fury over anti-Islam film across the Muslim world

Anti-US protests by crowds whipped into fury by a film that mocks Islam erupted across the Muslim world yesterday, as violence exploded in Sudan, Lebanon, Yemen and Tunisia, leaving a number of people dead and dozens wounded.

Three people were killed yesterday and another 28 wounded in clashes at the US embassy in Tunis, which was stormed by an angry mob protesting over the film, official media said.

Two of the injured were in a critical condition, the same source said, without giving any details about the victims.

Earlier the Muslim protesters had broken through into the compound of the US embassy in Tunis, undeterred by volleys of tear gas 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.

Petrol bombs, thought to have started the blaze, were thrown at a separate part of the sprawling embassy compound, causing another fire there, as security forces continued to fire tear gas and warning shots.

Several journalists said they had been attacked by protesters.

More than 1,000 stone-throwing protesters had gathered outside the US embassy earlier, shouting anti-US slogans including: “Obama! Obama! We are all Osama!” in reference to the slain al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Prior to the attack on the US embassy angry Tunisian protesters also attacked and set fire to a US school in the capital, located close to the embassy, which they stormed despite police firing tear gas and warning shots, official media reported.

Meanwhile, other protests broke out when Muslims emerged from mosques following the weekly Friday prayers to voice their anger at the film that ridicules the Prophet Mohammad.

In Khartoum, guards on the roof of the US embassy fired warning shots as a security perimeter was breached by dozens of Islamic flag-waving protesters, part of a crowd of thousands who had earlier stormed the British embassy and set fire to the German mission.

A police vehicle near the embassy was also torched as hundreds of demonstrators broke through an outer security cordon after one protester was hit by a police vehicle and killed, a medic and the reporter said.

Police had earlier fired volleys of tear gas in a bid to prevent the 10,000-strong crowd marching on the US embassy after it had swarmed over the German mission, attacking its façade and tearing down the flag to replace it with a black Islamist one before torching the building.

Violence also erupted in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, where a crowd of 300 Islamists attacked and set fire to a KFC restaurant, sparking clashes with police in which one person died and 25 were injured.

The attack on the US fast-food chain’s outlet came as Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Lebanon for a three-day visit, calling for Christian-Muslim coexistence and attacking religious extremism.

With tempers boiling across the Muslim world over the movie since the US ambassador to Libya was killed in an attack on an American consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday, the Pentagon said it has sent a team of Marines to Yemen.

The announcement came as tension spiralled again in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, with security forces firing warning shots and water cannon to disperse crowds of protesters trying to reach the US embassy.

Yemeni security forces blocked all roads to the mission, after similar confrontations left four people dead on Thursday.

With much of the anger directed at the US, where the film was made reportedly by a Coptic Christian and promoted by a rightwing pastor, Washington had earlier ordered security boosted at its embassies worldwide.

In Cairo, where the first protests against the film broke out on Tuesday, protesters again clashed with police outside the US embassy, although calm returned later after the Muslim Brotherhood withdrew a call for nationwide demonstrations, saying it wanted to avoid loss of life and damage to property.

Instead of the tens of thousands who had been expected to take to the streets of the capital, a few hundred protesters carrying banners and Islamic flags walked around Tahrir Square, which had been the epicentre of Egyptian protests.

The Brotherhood’s about-turn came after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said during a visit to Rome yesterday that the film is an “aggression” on Islam that distracts from the real problems of the Middle East.

In Iran, meanwhile, thousands of people yelling, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” rallied in central Tehran.

State TV showed the crowd streaming out after Friday prayers at Tehran University in which a hardline cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, blamed the US for the crude film, Innocence of Muslims, in which actors have strong American accents, which portrays Muslims as immoral and gratuitously violent.

“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,” 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, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel and the Gaza Strip and Kuwait.

Violence also erupted in Asia, with police saying 86 people were arrested after attacking the US consulate in the Indian city of Chennai.

In Kabul, hundreds of Afghan protesters took to the streets, setting fire to an effigy of US President Barack Obama and demanding the death of a film-maker who they say insulted the Prophet Mohammad.

The self-proclaimed producer of the film is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Copt living in California.

It was promoted on the websites of two other Americans, extremist Christian pastor Terry Jones and another Copt, Washington-based lawyer Morris Sadek.

Nakoula told American Arabic-language Radio Sawa that he had no regrets about making the film.

“No, I do not regret it. I am saddened by the killing of the ambassador but I do not regret making the film,” he said on Thursday.

Protesters set fire to trees in the US Embassy compound during a demonstration in front of the building in Tunis yesterday.