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
Apparently they've hijacked a jet too. Or else they're in a great frequent flyer program.
So what do you do to show us that you are peaceful people? Steal, kill and destroy over a cartoon? (Sounds like Satan doesn't it?) I believe it's all a ruse, a storm stirred up by clergy by using the cartoons. I'm not sure exactly what they hope to accomplish, but I really hope that folks will wake up and have enough sense and see to it that this crap backfires on them.
Yes.
I would go on to add that these demonstrations/riots around the globe are interconnected and organized.
Given that context, given the fact that there are 900 million Muslims around the world, your all-they-can-muster comment is right on target.
In short, the resistance by the radical Muslims, combined with the global tyrants our MSM and the looney left is downright puny.
"When are we going to fight back?"
What's there to "fight back" against? Islam is a religion of peace!!!!!! /s
This is all preplanned by the muzzies to get attention on a world wide scale so that the next big terrorist attack on the US or Europe can be blamed on this administration. The bad part is that many will believe it and have sympathy for the muzzies. The only way to stop this from happening is all out declared war now against a declared enemy. It is gonna get worse before it gets better.
Oh and thanks Christians for the outpouring of help after the Tsunami.....
Add about a half billion to that figure.
think of that statement as a club to bash them over the head with.
They do something crazy, we say Religion of Peace.
Then they go ahead and do something else. It's a PR thing trust me.
It's kind of like when my hound dog gets uppity.
I roll up the paper and say "Fido doesn't do that"... *wack*..."Fido doesn't do that"...*smack*.
The problem is that he HAS to say this, because if he actually said Islam is a murderous cult all of our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan would go to hell in a handbasket.
In other news today, 220 million Indonesian Muslims didn't storm the U.S. Embassy and didn't smash the windows of a guard post and also didn't fail to push through the gate.
Christians have been dragged out of their houses and killed in the streets of Indonesian towns and cities for at least 8 years that I know of. We helped one family flee the country several years ago--the mother had been dragged into the street and beaten and raped by Muslim gangs while neighbors watched and did nothing. Indonesia is not a friendly country if you're Christian.
Someone at FR wrote this week that Islam was an army disguised as a religion. I thought that was well spoken.
Yeah, you mean the same way that tearing down the Temple really put a stop to us Jews? Worked really well.
I agree eastforker. Unfortunately it's gonna get much worse.
as hard as i try to be as tolerant and understanding to these people and there way of life, the more i read these stories about these protests over these cartoons the more i care less and less about them and whatever ills fall upon them.
couple hundred THOUSAND
I just don't believe that. Maybe 10,000 if we're lucky. Probably about that many who weren't terrorists as well.
This Iran thing is going to end in nuclear war. The only question is which American city will be blown off the map before we do what needs to be done.
You know, I really wouldn't mind this avian flu thing mutating in that part of the world.
Never. *sigh*
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