Anti-US protests by crowds whipped into fury by a film that mocks Islam erupted across the Muslim world on Friday, as violence exploded in Sudan, Lebanon and Yemen leaving two people dead and dozens wounded.
The protests broke out when Muslims emerged from mosques following the weekly Friday main prayers to voice their anger at the film made in the United States, which shows extreme blasphemy and disrespect for Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
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. Police had earlier fired volleys of tear gas in a bid to prevent the 10,000-strong crowd marching on the US embassy after they had swarmed over the German mission, attacking its facade 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, sources said. 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. Tension spiraled 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. 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. In Iran, meanwhile, thousands of people yelling “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” rallied in central Tehran. State television showed the crowd streaming out after Friday prayers at Tehran University in which a cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, blamed the United States for the crude film, “Innocence of Muslims”. In Tunis, police fired tear gas and warning shots as more than 1,000 stone-throwing protesters gathered outside the US embassy. 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 insulted Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).