Anti-US protests across Muslim world; embassies attacked

About 100 protesters burnt the United States' flag and chanted slogans in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Thursday to demonstrate against an anti-Islam Internet film.

The demonstrators, mostly students at Islamic seminaries, hit the flag with shoes before setting it ablaze in front of the Baitul Mokarram Mosque, Bangladesh's biggest mosque.

Chanting "God is Greater", "We won't accept mocking of Prophet Mohammed" and "Down with American imperialism", the protesters held up traffic at a major road junction in the city.

"America should apologise immediately and arrest the people who've made the film," Shah Ahmadullah Ashraf, head of Bangladesh Khalefat Andolon, a small Islamic party that organised the rally, told the crowd.

He said the US embassy in Dhaka could be targeted and called for nationwide protests after Friday prayers.

Bangladesh police said they had boosted security at the embassy to prevent any repeat of violence that left four Americans including the US ambassador dead in Libya on Tuesday.

The low-budget amateur film made in the US ridicules the Prophet Mohammed by associating him with sex and themes of paedophilia and homosexuality.

Some 90 percent of Bangladesh's 153 million people are Muslims. The country saw protests by tens of thousands of people against the publication of Mohammed cartoons by a Danish newspaper in 2006.

Iran - Tehran

Up to 500 people protested in Tehran on Thursday over an anti-Islam film made in the United States, chanting "Death to America!" and death to the movie's director, an AFP photographer at the scene said.

The rally, near the Swiss embassy that handles US interests in the absence of US-Iran diplomatic ties, ended peacefully two hours later.
Hundreds of police and security personnel had prevented the crowd from approaching the Swiss compound, which had been evacuated by diplomats as a precaution.

An American flag was seen burned during the demonstration.

"The killing of the American ambassador in Libya in protest over insults against the prophet of Islam is an example of Muslim hatred against the repulsive policies (of the United States), which are aligned with Islamophobia," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Washington is investigating to see whether the Libya assault was organised by militant groups to coincide with the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

However, much attention is focused on the anti-Islam film said to have prompted the protests in Libya and Egypt.

Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani responded by saying: "Obama's comments that he respects the Muslim culture is a big and bold lie. The Americans and the Zionists do not tolerate other religions and cultures."

Western embassies in Iran maintain a high level of vigilance over any protests.

Canada last week closed its mission, citing concern over the safety of its diplomats.

In November last year, the British embassy was stormed and ransacked during a state-organised demonstration, prompting London to close that mission and order Iran's diplomats out of Britain.

In 1979, in the wake of Iran's Islamic revolution, protesters overran the US embassy in Tehran, taking 52 diplomats and other Americans hostage for 444 days. That incident led to the rupture of Iran-US ties.

Yemen

Yemeni police on Thursday shot dead a protester in renewed confrontations outside the US embassy in Sanaa, shortly after ejecting crowds that stormed the mission's compound, a security official said.

The official said five other protesters were injured when demonstrators, angry over a film insulting Islam, tried to storm the compound again.

Hundreds of Yemeni demonstrators stormed the US embassy in Sanaa on Thursday in protest at a film they consider blasphemous to Islam, and security guards tried to hold them off by firing into the air.

The attack followed Tuesday night's storming of the United States Consulate in Benghazi, where the ambassador and three other staff were killed. President Barack Obama said the perpetrators would be tracked down and ordered two destroyers to the Libyan coast, but there were fears protests would spread to other countries in the Muslim world.

Witnesses in Sanaa said the demonstrators smashed windows of the security offices outside the embassy before breaking through the main gate of the heavily fortified compound in eastern Sanaa. Security guards opened fire.

Police, protesters clash outside US embassy in Cairo

Police used tear gas as they clashed on Thursday with a crowd protesting outside the US embassy in Cairo against a film mocking Islam, images broadcast by Egypt's public television showed.

The health ministry said 13 people were injured during sporadic clashes through the night outside the embassy, where on Tuesday thousands of protesters tore down the Stars and Stripes and replaced it with a black Islamic flag.

Iraqi militia threatens U.S. interests over film

An Iraqi militia that carried out some of the most prominent attacks on foreigners during the Iraq war on Thursday threatened U.S. interests in the country over a film that has triggered protests in Libya, Egypt and Yemen.

 "The offence caused to the messenger (Prophet Mohammad) will put all American interests in danger and we will not forgive them for that," said Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asaib al-Haq militia.

Protests against the film erupted in Baghdad on Thursday and in the city of Basra, 420 km (260 miles) southeast of the capital. Hundreds of followers of anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets calling on the Iraqi government to close the U.S. embassy.

 Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki denounced the film as "insulting" and "racist" but called on Muslims not to react with violence.

 "The natural response is to refrain from resorting to violence and demonstrate the principles of Islam and its civilised values," he said in a statement on Thursday.

  In Baghdad, hundreds of protesters gathered in Sadr's stronghold of Sadr City, holding up posters of Sadr, burning U.S. flags and chanting, "Death to America".

 "How long will we stay in this coma where there is no real sanction?" Sheikh Riyadh al-Waeli, a Sadr aid, told protesters. "This demonstration is not enough unless there is a real sanction."

 The crowd in Basra also numbered in the hundreds and both Sunni and Shi'ite clerics participated in the demonstration, which was organised by Sadr's office.

 "We have to fire the U.S ambassador because these things are carried out under U.S supervision and are aimed at offending Islam and Muslims," protester Yaarab al-Mohammadawi told Reuters.

 A smaller protest also took place in the city of Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad.

Afghan president postpones trip to Norway amid concerns

The Afghan president canceled his official visit to Norway amid concerns following Mideast riots over a film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad, officials said Thursday. Hamid Karzai also talked to President Barack Obama and expressed condolences over the killing of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya.

President Karzai's trip to Norway is to take place at a later date, said his spokesman, Aimal Faizi. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry said the Afghan leader postponed the trip because he felt he needed to stay at home.

"The reason is that the president, in light of the serious events in some Arab countries in the past day, sees a need to be in Afghanistan," said the Norwegian statement. Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said he looks forward to receiving Karzai in Norway "at a later date."

Karzai was to have traveled to Oslo late Wednesday to sign an agreement of strategic partnership.

According to Karzai's office, the Afghan leader spoke by phone late Wednesday with Obama and conveyed his condolences for the violent killings of U.S. diplomats in Libya. He also discussed the "film and the insulting of holy Islamic values," but the statement provided no other details.

Karzai has condemned the anti-Islam film as "inhuman and insulting" and made by "extremists."

The Taliban have called on their fighters to avenge the film by increasing their attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan.

In Kabul, Australian Army Brig. Gen. Roger Noble from the U.S.-led military coalition said Thursday that NATO has warned the international forces over the film. The alliance has also sought to deflect the potential for violence in Afghanistan over the film.

"What we're trying to do is minimize the chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or inadvertently putting ourselves in a position which might inflame a protest or people who gather together in the next few days," Noble said.

He said the coalition respected the Afghan people and their culture and religion. "So we ask your understanding on that and remember that we are here, a long way from home, trying to help Afghanistan."

Afghan authorities have ordered the YouTube website be shutdown "indefinitely" to stop Afghans watching a U.S.-made film they say insults the Prophet Mohammad, government sources told Reuters on Thursday. 

 The shutdown will begin some time today, they said, adding it was ordered to prevent outbreaks of the violence seen in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere. 

Salafist group denies it attacked US mission in Libya

A Salafist organisation based in eastern Libya on Thursday denied responsibility for a deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.

Katibat Ansar al-Sharia (Brigade of the Supporters of Sharia), in a statement, condemned "the accusations without any verification or investigation" which have emerged in the Libyan media.

Such accusations were part of "a pre-arranged plan to sully the image (of the group) and arouse hostility towards it," the statement said.

"Katibat Ansar al-Sharia is a component of a proud people who are pushing for sharia (Islamic law) to be applied as its first and last concern," said the group on its Facebook page which has almost 5,000 members.

Libya on Thursday launched a probe into Tuesday's attack on the US consulate in which the American ambassador and three other US nationals died, amid speculation that Al-Qaeda rather than a frenzied mob carried out the assault.

Katibat Ansar al-Sharia, which was formed by former rebels after last year's uprising which toppled Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, underlined its own repugnance at the movie.

"Any insult against our Prophet... is an insult against all Muslims who believe in God," it said. "How can anyone remain silent in the face of insults against our Prophet?"

Protests in Palestine

Several hundred Palestinians in the Gaza Strip protested on Thursday against an anti-Muslim film that has sparked deadly riots in Libya and Yemen.

The protest, called by the ruling Hamas government's ministry of religious endowments, comes after two days of demonstrations that have left four US embassy staff including the ambassador dead in Libya and a protester shot dead in Yemen.

Ismail Radwan, Hamas's minister of religious endowments, called on the protesters gathered outside the legislative council building in Gaza City to "boycott American products."

He called for new demonstrations to be held after Friday prayers.

Protesters held banners reading "Where are you Muslims, when your prophet is being insulted?"

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.