Posted on 02/19/2006 8:07:38 AM PST by janetjanet998
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Hundreds of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad tried to storm the U.S. Embassy on Sunday, smashing the windows of a guard post but failing to push through the gates. Several people were injured.
Pakistani security forces, meanwhile, sealed off the capital of Islamabad to block a planned mass demonstration and fired tear gas and gunshots to chase off protesters. In Turkey, tens of thousands gathered in Istanbul chanting slogans against Denmark, Israel and the United States.
Protests over the cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have been republished in other European publications and elsewhere, have swept across the Muslim world, growing into mass outlets for rage against the West in general, and Israel and the United States in particular.
Christians also have become targets. Pakistani Muslims protesting in the southern city of Sukkur ransacked and burned a church Sunday after hearing accusations that a Christian man had burned pages of the Quran, Islam's holy book.
That incident came a day after Muslims protesting in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri attacked Christians and burned 15 churches in a three-hour rampage that killed at least 15 people. Some 30 other people have died during protests over the cartoons that erupted about three weeks ago.
In Jakarta, about 400 people marched to the heavily fortified U.S. mission in the center of the city, behind a banner reading "We are ready to attack the enemies of the Prophet."
Protesters throwing stones and brandishing wooden staves tried to break through the gates. They set fire to U.S. flags and a poster of President Bush and smashed the windows of a guard outpost before dispersing after a few minutes.
The U.S. Embassy called the attacks deplorable, describing them as acts of "thuggery."
A protest organizer said the West, and particularly the United States, is attacking Islam.
"They want to destroy Islam through the issue of terrorism ... and all those things are engineered by the United States," said Maksuni, who only uses one name.
"We are fighting America fiercely this time," he said. "And we also are fighting Denmark."
In Pakistan, where protests last week left five people dead, police put up roadblocks around Islamabad to keep people from entering the capital for a planned mass protest called by a coalition of six hard-line Islamic parties, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal — United Action Forum.
Authorities also detained several lawmakers and Islamic leaders during raids in three cities and announced they would arrest anyone joining a gathering of more than five people to prevent the demonstration.
Opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a senior figure in the Islamic coalition, was eventually given permission to lead a small rally through a square in the city center. The protesters chanted "God is great!" and "Any friend of America is a traitor."
But when about 100 other protesters tried to reach the square, officers fired tear gas and at least one gunshot to chase them off. More gunshots were heard later in the city, but it wasn't clear who fired them. At least two policemen were injured, one bleeding from the head. Several demonstrators also were hurt.
A crowd of 700 people, some throwing stones at police, tried to march toward Islamabad's heavily guarded diplomatic enclave about 1.3 miles from the square but with blocked by troops in armored personnel carriers.
Police also blocked about 1,500 protesters from reaching Islamabad from the city of Peshawar by putting shipping containers and sandbags on a bridge along a highway leading to the capital, said Mohammed Iqbal, a key member of the religious alliance.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, about 600 people staged a protest in Chaman, a town near the Afghan border, burning Danish flags and an effigy of the Danish prime minister.
Such protests prompted Denmark on Sunday to temporarily recall its ambassador to Pakistan, Bent Wigotski, because it was impossible for him "to perform his job duties during the present circumstances," the Danish Foreign Ministry said in a statement
There is apparently the "muslim" exception to almost everything in the west. It would offend them if we protected our embassies.
Let's keep on drawing the terrorists into the fly traps and killing them by the tens of thousands, and in the process, freeing the other people who want to be rid of their yoke of tyranny.
Nag, nag, nag, but until we start calling islam what it really is, a theocracy, we will not see what they are doing as acts of war.
Theocracy:
1. A government ruled by or subject to religious authority.
2. A state so governed
Thank you Jimmy-fricken-Carter.
Tens of thousands in the most "englightened, secular" Muslim country on earth? The EU is going to have an interesting new member. .....if they're approved.
Also? Christians (and Jews) are always targets.
Lol.. so true i noticed this handful also as i was surfing for " cartoon protest photos on yahoo.. Man that sure was just a handful protesting eh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Their geography could use a little work.
If only...
Must of been da jooooooooooooooos who edited those photos of the few muslims and make it look like all them muslims protesting...
Now that is good.
Darn that Dick Cheney.
Read my tagline. It fits with your post.
Turkey is dead meat as far as the EU is concerned. The euros may be indolent and supine much of the time but they are not totally stupid.
As for the mobs, the focus is becoming more clear as they attack the US, and that is good in a way--the scum are dropping their masks and revealing what they truly are so even the deniers here at home can begin to see it.
They think we are attacking Islam now? We haven't even started! Cartoons pale in comparison to the real thing.
Bump!!!!
He has to say that out of diplomatic and political necessity.
Don't think for a second that he beleives it.
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