4 more die in rioting over Prophet cartoons
Afp, Qalat
Appeals for calm in a furor overcartoons of the Prophet Mohammed went unheeded Wednesday as police shot dead four more protestors during rioting in Afghanistan, bringing the worldwide death toll to 13. Eleven demonstrators have been killed since Friday in Afghanistan, and one each in Somalia and Lebanon. The re-printing of the 12 offending caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in a French satirical weekly on Wednesday, along with a fresh batch of related cartoons, was likely to deepen Muslim anger against what is perceived as an act of blasphemy. Also on Wednesday, Russia's President Vladimir Putin slammed the cartoons -- first published in Denmark and later reproduced in dozens of mainly European papers -- as a provocation, equating them with child pornography. He called on Denmark to "ask for forgiveness." In Pakistan, meanwhile, thousands of protesters burned an effigy of US President George W. Bush Wednesday in a remote Pakistani tribal area, the third day of large-scale demonstrations in different Pakastani cities. Around 3,000 demonstrators shouting "Allahu Akhbar" (God is great) in Dara Adamkhel, near the Afghan border, accused Bush backing the caricatures. "Bush is behind this, he heads the gang which is against Islam," Said Wazir, the leader of a local Islamic group called Quami Tehreek, told the crowd. "We condemn Bush and we condemn Denmark for publishing blasphemous cartoons." Bush assured Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Tuesday of his "support and solidarity," as did British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac. In the West Bank city of Hebron, scores of Palestinians Wednesday hurled stones and bottles at the offices of a team of international monitors to protest the cartoons. Denmark, meanwhile, continued to close diplomatic outposts and ensure the safety of its nationals abroad, pulling out 11 Danish members of a peace-monitoring team in the West Bank, officials said Wednesday. Its embassies and consulates have been fire-bombed and stormed in Tehran, Beirut and Damascus in recent days. The latest deaths in Afghanistan occurred as protestors and police clashed in Qalat, the capital of southern Zabul province. About 400 protestors hurled stones as they tried to storm the police headquarters, before moving to a US-led military coalition base where they torched four fuel tankers, witnesses and an army commander said. A provincial official said police had opened fire to control the crowd while witnesses said coalition troops had fired into the air.
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