Posted on 02/05/2006 6:11:04 PM PST by blam
Flame of Islamic fury spreads to Beirut
By Ramsay Short in Beirut and Matt Barnwell
(Filed: 06/02/2006)
Thousands of Muslim demonstrators in Beirut clashed with police yesterday, storming the Danish consulate and setting it ablaze in protest over the cartoons that mocked the Prophet Mohammed.
A day after the Syrian demonstrators set fire to the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Damascus, the violence spread to Lebanon.
A Muslim protester expresses his anger in front of the blazing Danish consulate in Beirut
In the early hours, a large group of mainly Sunni Islamic extremists broke through military blockades in the Christian Beirut suburb of Achrafieh, defying tear gas and water cannon to reach the Danish consulate, which had been evacuated two days ago. Security officials said at least 30 people, some protesters and some policemen, were injured in the clashes.
As furious demonstrations were staged across the Muslim world, from Lahore to Gaza, a Roman Catholic priest was shot dead in a church courtyard in north-east Turkey. There were fears that the murder could be the first death connected to the cartoon protests.
Fr Andrea Santoro, 59, was shot twice in the entrance of the Santa Maria Church in Trabzon after Sunday Mass. The gunman shouted "God is great" as he fired his pistol, said Mgr Antonio Lucibello, the Vatican's ambassador to Turkey. The cry, used in prayer, is often employed as a rallying call by Islamic militants.
The Danish foreign ministry yesterday urged its citizens to leave Lebanon and Syria, saying they should stay indoors "until we have found a way to get them out of there".
As scores of Danes left the Middle East, a foreign ministry spokesman insisted: "The situation is still critical for Danes there. Those who opt to stay must be very careful".
Norwegians there were also advised to remain indoors in the wake of the violence.
The demonstration in Beirut yesterday was the latest in a series of increasingly violent protests across the Middle East in response to the publication by a Danish newspaper - repeated by several European dailies - of caricatures of Islam and Mohammad.
The protesters who had set alight the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus also damaged the Swedish embassy there and tried to storm the French mission but were held off by riot police. Syria stepped up security at western embassies yesterday after being criticised for failing to protect the Danish and Norwegian embassies.
The latest violent protest, in Beirut, began peacefully yesterday. However, thick smoke filled the sky as it degenerated into rioting, with protesters using petrol to start the fire going and climbing ladders to enter the building's upper storeys.
Despite the attempts of clerics to stay the mainly young male crowd, hundreds of men, some carrying green flags with the words "God is Great" written in Arabic, pushed them away and threw cans of tear gas back at police.
The Maronite Catholic church near the Danish consulate was also attacked, prompting fears that the protests could turn into a sectarian clash. By 4pm order had been restored and the 2,000 demonstrators had dispersed.
By the evening however a counter-demonstration of Christian protesters had gathered at the Mar Maroun Church.
The Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora said: "This has nothing to do with Islam at all. Destabilising security and vandalism gives a wrong image of Islam. The Prophet Mohammed cannot be defended this way."
The interior minister, Hassan al-Sabaa, a retired Sunni Muslim officer loyal to the country's anti-Syrian majority coalition, submitted his resignation at an emergency cabinet meeting. "We had two solutions: either to try to keep people away [from the consulate] as we did, or to use weapons against them," he said. "I would never order the use of arms against the Lebanese."
From Paris, the Lebanese parliament's majority leader, Saad Hariri, urged calm. "True Muslims feel ashamed of what happened today," he said. "They went to a demonstration of peace.
But some little-minded people and criminals caused the trouble. We will not let them do this again because we Muslims and Christians are one people and we will do everything to protect this country."
In Turkey, 300 ultra-nationalists marched to the Danish consulate in Istanbul, hurling eggs at the building and burning a Danish flag. In a separate protest, also in Istanbul, 2,000 people shouted slogans and burnt an effigy of the Danish prime minister.
The Turkish prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, whose party has roots in Turkey's Islamist movement, said "an irresponsible caricaturist" had "no right" to attack the Prophet. But he cautioned: "Setting fire to embassies and destroying them is wrong. The solution lies in diplomacy, not in guns."
Since the crisis erupted, the cartoons of Mohammed have been reprinted in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Jordan, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.
Well, this is what I was told by a moderator on Airliners.net when he deleted over a dozen of my posts and threatened to ban me. Of course the little prick is from Egypt and had already banned 7 people (one for a year and one for two years) for saying that most Muslims support, either directly or indirectly, terrorism.
Now that's gonna be a scary one!
There is a thread running about these made-up cartoons from your link.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1572483/posts
a thread to keep as reference...
Chris Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary (medium: feces)
The Germans were smarter than Muslims. V-2 rockets, jet aircraft........
This war will make Islam a disappearing blip on the radar. It's much cheaper to level entire countries when you have no intention of rebuilding them.
The other difference between Hitler and Islam, is that Islam has been slowly, steadily infiltrating western and non-muslim countires for years, while lying low. They've been building up their strength and keep testing it from time to time to see when the time is ripe to try a world wide jihad. Hitler had to work by moving troops to where he wanted to go. Islam's troops are already in place.
Unless I've missed something, notice how the islamofacists are not protesting in America...
One wonders, why? It certainly isn't due to the weasle-worded mish-mash put out by the State Department...
the infowarrior
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