British soldiers were flown to a city in northwestern Afghanistan today to restore calm after four people were killed in a violent protest against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
As a wave of fury spread across the Islamic world over the cartoons, the UK troops were dispatched to the city of Maymana, where around 100 protesters armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked a Norwegian-run NATO base, burning an armoured vehicle, a UN car and guard posts.
An Afghan security official said that police had fired on the demonstrators, killing four people and wounding 18.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said that a UK infantry company, around 140 strong, had been flown to the city from the regional capital of Mazar-e-Sharif to provide security for the Norwegian "provincial reconstruction team", which is working in a UK-controlled area.
"Their mission is to provide a secure environment so that the Norwegian PRT can continue its efforts to assist the Afghan reconstruction," he said.
It was the second straight day that the protests have cost lives in Afghanistan, where at least three protesters were shot dead yesterday.
The Maymana riot was one of half a dozen around Afghanistan, including in the capital, Kabul. There were other demonstrations across the Islamic world over the cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper in September. The images, which are deeply offensive to Muslims since Islam bars any depiction of the Prophet or of Allah, have been republished in various newspapers in Europe, Israel and Australia.
Denmark’s embassies have been set on fire in Lebanon and Syria, prompting the EU presidency to issue a strongly worded warning to 19 countries across the Middle East that they are obliged to protect EU missions.
Fury over the images has continued to spread, with protests staged in Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, the Palestinian territories, Pakistan and Thailand. Further protests were reported today in Yemen, Djibouti and Azerbaijan.
In the Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, nearly 3,000 people attended a rally today called by the Islamist government of North West Frontier Province, shouting "Hang the cartoonists". In the country's remote North Waziristan bordering Afghanistan, some 5,000 tribesmen and students held a protest march and burnt a Danish flag.
In Iran, which is locked in a nuclear stand-off with the West and which has cut trade ties with Denmark over the satirical images, a crowd pelted the Danish Embassy in Tehran with petrol bombs and stones for a second day.
Stig Moeller, the Danish Foreign Minister, called his Iranian counterpart "and demanded in clear terms that Iran does all it can to protect the embassy and Danish lives", a Danish Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, called the drawings part of a "conspiracy by Zionists who were angry because of the victory of Hamas", a reference to the Palestinian militant group that won a surprise landslide victory in last month’s elections. "The West condemns any denial of the Jewish Holocaust, but it permits the insult of Islamic sanctities," Khamenei said in a speech that was broadcast on public radio.
In Turkey, police arrested a 16-year-old schoolboy on suspicion that he is the gunman who shot dead an Italian Catholic priest. NTV television, citing police officials, reported that the suspect told interrogators he killed Father Andrea Santoro to avenge the publication of the cartoons.
Father Santoro, 60, was shot dead on Sunday while praying in his church along the Black Sea coast. Witnesses say the killer screamed "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," before firing two bullets into the priest's back as he kneeled to pray inside the Santa Maria Church in the port city of Trabzon.
Croatia became the latest country where a newspaper republished the cartoons, which have now been reprinted in Australia, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Fiji, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, United States, Ukraine and Yemen. No British newspaper has published the images.
Helen Clark, the New Zealand Prime Minister, slammed the decision by three New Zealand newspapers and two television channels to reproduce the cartoons. Mrs Clark said that although the newspapers had the right to publish what they wanted, their decision was "ill-judged" and "gratuitious" and put New Zealanders overseas at risk.
Denmark today advised its citizens to leave Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim state, extending travel advice that covers most of the Islamic world.
In Britain, moderate Muslim groups said they would stage a rally in London this weekend to counter angry protests by extremist elements in the row over the cartoons. Inayat
Bunglawala, from the Muslim Council of Britain, said Saturday's event would be a peaceful rally to "refocus attention" on the original dispute about the cartoons.
Scotland Yard is investigating whether charges should be brought against demonstrators who protested outside the Danish Embassy in London last week, bearing placards with slogans such as"Massacre Those Who Insult Islam" and "Europe, Your 9/11 Will Come".
One protester who sparked outrage by dressing as a suicide bomber, 22-year-old student Omar Khayam, was today arrested for breaching the terms of his parole. Khayam was released from prison last year halfway through a six-year term for drug-dealing.
