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
We can't know when this traitor will die, but we can be certain that the grass on his grave will need neither watering nor fertilizing for at least one generation.
Islam is NOT under attack by America...
America is under attack by ISLAM!
I don't know.
We need to use REAL guns with REAL bullets and let em have it. They can be martyrs in hell.
Islam is a religion of "peace"
A big "peace" of Iran
A big "peace" of France
A big "peace" of Libya
And Indonesia per chance
We are in a full fledged war with people who will kill us over stupid cartoons. They know nothing of civilization and tolerance. I want our leaders to get passed the political garbage and acknowledge that fact.
Too costly. If it'd be too costly to invade Imperial Japan, it'd certainly be too costly to invade Iran. Too bad Truman's not here to make the hard call.
Does this mean we'd still throw away another billion dollars to Muslims after the next Tsunami?
Interesting thought. I believe political correctness is just one of a myriad of enemies we face.
I don't disagree with anything you said. I was just pointing out why President Bush can't come out and call Islam what it is.
I've read the Koran, so I know what it's about, and it makes me sick to my stomach to hear it called "the religion of peace" too.
Patton and MacArthur wouldn't have much of a problem (neither would Pershing, NOR Teddy Roosevelt.)
Is there any substantive difference between this mob mentality and our inner cities? seems like the spread of urban legends among the ignorand and/or uninformed looking for an excuse to blame others for their lot in life.
I spent a year in Kosovo dealing with Muslims. I'm not sure that your everyday American understands how they think. At the very least they will try to out reproduce us. It is a fight I don't think we are ready for.
Christians have been attacked and killed in Indonesia for years. It's been happening even in Iraq, especially after the fall of Saddam. Radical Islam is a problem worldwide. It has only begun to be addressed over the last four years.
The media won't show you this. Instead they show you these organized "I hate America, Israel and Denmark" protests where a window from a guard shed gets kicked out.
The message is that "There is no radical Muslim violence by some. Instead, there's just a lot of Muslims who hate the evil countries of America, Israel...".
He still thinks it's a "religion of peace", so don't hold your breath.
It's time to get serious with the Moos. It's time for Allah (piss be upon him in Hell) to die.
I wish the stupid MSM droolers would get it right: These riots have absolutely NOTHING to do with any idiotic cartoons, fercryinoutloud.............just a chance to attack any and everything Christian/Western.
Start shooting already!!
At what point are the Marines allowed to open fire?
Come on - We have brave warriors "fighting back" and giving their lives every week since Sept 11th -
The silly notion that we aren't fighting back is just foolishness.
Granted I can understand the sentiment (at times) that maybe we could be more aggressive in this instance or that instance.....but the notion that we "aren't fighting back" is just flat out wrong.
On the whole we will fight this war at the times and places of our choosing. Not our enemies.
He seems to be moving in that direction. In the State of the Union speech he called the enemy "radical Islam," rather than Islamism or hijackers-of-the-ROP or whatever. Finally calling it Islam, that's what the poseurs call a paradigm shift. And high time we had one.
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