Protesters Storm U.S. Compounds in Mideast, Africa

By FARNAZ FASSIHI

Associated Press

A pall of smoke rises above protesters after they set alight cars at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis.

BEIRUT?Many of the protests that spread across the Muslim world on Friday, with violent mobs targeting diplomatic compounds of the U.S. and its allies started out as relatively small and restrained but rapidly grew out of control when groups of extremists riled up the crowd.

Similar scenes were repeated in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, as crowds of men and women carried placards denouncing the video trailer for a purported film called "Innocence of Muslims," and directed their anger toward the U.S. and Israel. American flags were burned in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and Bangladesh during protests.

Associated Press

Pakistani police officers block protesters trying to reach the U.S. Embassy during a protest in Islamabad.

Demonstrations sparked by an anti-Muslim video that started in Egypt this week spread across parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East on Friday. Meg Coker, Adam Horvath and Farnaz Fassihi join The News Hub with the latest. Photo: AP.

The sudden eruption of anger against the U.S. and its allies isn't new in the Islamic world. But the violence targeted at Americans in the fledging democracies of the Arab Spring presents a precarious challenge for its newly elected leaders. They must balance defending the U.S., an important ally that helped them come to power, against appeasing the raw sentiments of a minority of Islamist radicals with the power to destabilize the region.

In Benghazi, Libya?where a violent attack Tuesday on the U.S. Consulate resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans?several conservative imams preached a message of tolerance and nonviolence across their mosques during the Friday noon prayer.

Approximately 100 men stood in front of the city's largest hotel shouting slogans against the U.S. and the anti-Islamic video. Unlike Tuesday night, Friday's protest was muted, with no one brandishing guns. Many in the crowd carried the flag used by militant Islamists,

Mohammed al-Mifty, 25 years old, carried a hand-drawn sign saying, "They degrade our prophet and no one cares, but an American dies and the world turns upside down." His motivation for taking to the streets Friday was to defend Islam, he said. That is the reason why he also participated in the protest on Tuesday evening in front of the U.S. consulate.

Photos: Turmoil Spreads

Danish Ismail/Reuters

Policemen scuffled with the members of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association during a protest against the U.S. in Srinagar, India.

Map: Middle East Unrest

Timeline: Past Attacks

Past attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates around the world.

The violence also reached Tunisia, one of the most moderate Muslim countries and the birthplace of the Arab Spring. Three people died during clashes as protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy compound, climbing over walls and breaking a locked gate. They set fire to cars parked in the embassy parking lot, and the American school sending huge plumes of black smoke into the air.

Demonstrators brought down the American flag and raised the black flag common to militant Islamist movements. Three people were killed and 28 injured, according to Tunisia's state-controlled news agency.

A Tunisian official said U.S. embassy security personnel gave Tunisian security forces permission to enter the embassy grounds and push out protesters with tear gas and bird shot after they forced their way into the compound. Armed with rocks and Molotov cocktails, protesters clashed with police into the night in the streets around the sprawling U.S. Embassy compound.

They later set the administration building of the nearby American school on fire. Around nightfall, a small group of protesters breached the walls of the U.S. compound and set a small fire inside the embassy building. according to witnesses.

A local Tunisian staff member at the U.S. Embassy said American staffers had been told to stay home in anticipation of the protests. The American School had similarly told students to stay home on Friday.

One 21-year-old protester, who said his name was Nabil, said the imam at his mosque had told them of the video, but that he hadn't seen it himself. "They told us there was a movie making fun of our prophet and our imams don't lie," he said.

Another protester, 38-year-old Khaled Khafrawi, said he joined Friday's protests because he was angry that American officials had refused to apologize for the film. By 8:30 p.m. the protests had mostly dissipated.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Yemeni protesters shout slogans during a demonstration at a street leading to the U.S. embassy in San'a.

The Libyan government arrested four people Thursday in connection with the deadly attack on the American consulate Tuesday night as Libyan and U.S. officials mounted a manhunt for others believed to be involved. Matt Bradley reports. Photo: Reuters.

In Sudan, protesters clashed with riot police as they attacked Western embassies in Khartoum, including the compounds of Germany and the U.K. a day after the country's Islamic scholars called for mass protests. They clashed with riot police as they tried to shove against the crowd to disperse them.

Similar scenes were repeated across the Muslim world as crowds of men and women carried placards denouncing the video trailer for a purported film called "Innocence of Muslims," and directed their anger toward the U.S. and Israel. American flags were burned in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and Bangladesh during protests.

The sudden eruption of anger against the U.S. and its allies isn't new in the Muslim world. But the violence targeted at Americans in the fledging democracies of the Arab Spring presents a precarious challenge for its newly elected leaders. They must balance defending the U.S., an important ally that helped them come to power, against appeasing the raw sentiments of a minority of Islamist radicals with the power to destabilize the region.

In Benghazi, Libya?where a violent attack Tuesday on the U.S. Consulate resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans?several conservative imams preached a message of tolerance and nonviolence across their mosques during the Friday noon prayer.

Approximately 100 men stood in front of the city's largest hotel shouting slogans against the U.S. and the anti-Islamic video. Unlike Tuesday night, Friday's protest was muted, with no one brandishing guns. Many in the crowd carried the flag used by militant Islamists,

Mohammed al-Mifty, 25 years old, carried a hand-drawn sign saying, "They degrade our prophet and no one cares, but an American dies and the world turns upside down." His motivation for taking to the streets Friday was to defend Islam, he said. That is the reason why he also participated in the protest on Tuesday evening in front of the U.S. consulate.

He denied being a member of Ansar al-Sharia, the Islamic militant group that is the focus of the manhunt looking for the people who killed the four American diplomats. Others in the crowd Friday chanted slogans in favor of al Qaeda.

Facing similar violence in Yemen, the U.S. dispatched Marines to help protect its embassy in the capital, San'a Friday after about 800 of mostly young men tried to storm the compound. The platoon is the second deployment of Marines to the region this week after a team of Marines was sent to Libya following the deadly attack in Benghazi a team of Marines was sent to Tripoli to reinforce the main embassy there.

"This is partly in response to the violence at the diplomatic compounds in San'a and partially as a precautionary measure," said a senior U.S. official.

Yemen security forces blasted water cannon and tear gas at the crowd while tanks and armored vehicles blocked the road. U.S. Embassy staff was evacuated to safety Thursday, according to Yemen security officials.

"It is a shame that Americans aren't protesting in our support against the wrongdoing of their own people," said Ali Shajerah, one of the protesters in Yemen, referring to the video.

In Afghanistan, hundreds gathered in the eastern city of Jalalabad chanting anti-American slogans and setting a U.S. flag on fire. They also announced a $100,000 reward for killing the authors of the offending video, according to a witness. But Kabul avoided large-scale riots following calls by religious leaders to stay calm.

Many protesters have demanded that U.S. President Barack Obama apologize to the Muslim world and punish the people behind the video. U.S. officials have strongly condemned the video and the violence that has followed. In Egypt, protesters were calling on President Mohammed Morsi on Friday to cancel his planned trip to Washington at the end of this month.

Several hundred Sudanese stormed into the German Embassy in Khartoum, setting part of an embassy building aflame Friday, Sept. 14. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle condemned the attack. (Video: AP/Photo: Getty Images)

Sudanese Police fired tear gas at protesters Friday, Sept. 14, on the outskirts of Khartoum, trying to prevent them from getting to the U.S. Embassy to demonstrate against an anti-Islam movie made in the U.S. (Video: AP)

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The sudden eruption of anger against the U.S. isn't new in the Muslim world. But violence targeting Americans in newly found democracies of the Arab Spring present a precarious challenge for its newly elected leaders. They must balance defending the U.S., an important ally that helped them come to power, against appeasing the raw sentiments of a minority of Islamist radicals with the power to destabilize the region.

In Tehran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a statement on Friday condemning the inflammatory video, and said the U.S. and Israel were behind it. Mr. Khamenei also called on Muslims world-wide to unite in reaction to the insult.

As Pope Benedict XVI motorcade snaked up the highway north toward the Vatican embassy in the mountains outside Beirut, with thousands of people lined up to cheer and wave, protesters gathered after Friday prayers in the Sunni northern city of Tripoli where they clashed with security forces as they tried to enter a government building. Lebanese media reported 25 people were injured and one killed in Tripoli. A KFC restaurant was also set ablaze.

"The Pope's trip is a very courageous visit, coming at this time as the region is in flames means he is putting a lot of stakes into brining peace and strengthening Christians," said Hani Fash, a moderate Shiite cleric and a critic of Syria and Iran's regime, in Beirut.

In Qatar, typically not a scene of anti-Western riots, hundreds gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Doha after Friday prayers. Demonstrators shouted anti-U.S. slogans, calling for the U.S. ambassador to Qatar to leave, one eyewitness said. The protest, which lasted about an hour, passed off peacefully despite a big security presence.

In India, thousands of Kashmiri Muslims protested Friday against the video, burning U.S. flags and calling U.S. President Barack Obama a terrorist, the Associated Press reported.

In the southern Indian city of Chennai, protesters threw stones at the U.S. Consulate, shattering some windows and burning an effigy of Mr. Obama. Police quickly cleared the area, arresting more than 100 protesters. U.S. Embassy officials in Delhi didn't immediately comment.

In Saudi Arabia, a heavy police presence dispersed a rare protest in that was called for in a Riyadh McDonald's restaurant.

??Julian E. Barnes in Washington, Nicholas Bariyo in Uganda, Margaret Coker in Libya, Hakim Almasmari in Yemen, Nathan Hodge and Habib Khan Totakhil in Afghanistan, Charles Levinson in Lebanon and Alex Delmar-Morgan in Doha contributed to this article.

Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444023704577651520087673992.html?mod=rss_asia_whats_news

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