3 Afghans Killed in Protest of Cartoons

Three Afghan protesters were killed Tuesday when a crowd enraged by caricatures of the prophet Muhammad attacked a NATO military base on the second day of violent demonstrations in Afghanistan.

About 1,000 protesters marched on the base in Meymaneh, capital of northwestern Faryab province, and Norwegian troops fired tear gas to prevent them from entering, said Yousuf Stanizai, spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry.

Someone in the crowd apparently threw grenades, and the blasts killed three demonstrators and injured 18, Stanizai said.

“Norwegian troops fired warning shots into the air,” said Annie Gibson-Sexton, spokeswoman for NATO’s troops in Afghanistan. “They did not fire shots into the crowd.”

Protests continued today, as police shot at rioters to stop them from marching on a U.S. military base in the southern city of Qalat, Associated Press reported. Two protesters were killed and 14 people, including four security officers, were injured.

Members of the country’s top Islamic clerics’ organization went on radio and TV stations early today calling for an end to the violence.

The protest in Meymaneh was one of many Tuesday by Muslims in the Middle East, Africa and Asia over the caricatures, which were originally printed in a Danish newspaper last fall and have since been widely reprinted, especially in Europe.

The Afghan mob set ablaze a vacant government building next to the military compound and torched several military vehicles before firing rifles and lobbing grenades, Gibson-Sexton said. She estimated that 200 to 300 people were in the crowd at the time.

The United Nations evacuated most of its staff from the city after the clashes. British troops in a NATO force flew into Meymaneh to help restore order, Gibson-Sexton said.

In Oslo, the Norwegian capital, military commander Sverre Diesen said one Norwegian soldier was injured by a grenade splinter and another was hurt by a flying rock, Associated Press reported. Two Finnish soldiers were also hurt, Diesen said.

Two U.S. A-10 antitank warplanes were flying to Meymaneh and a German C-130 transport plane was on standby to evacuate troops if necessary, Diesen said.

The Norwegian and Finnish soldiers in Meymaneh are on a provincial reconstruction team, a relatively small unit deployed to help build schools and other infrastructure. Gibson-Sexton declined to say how many NATO troops were on the base during the protest.

At least 10 Afghans have died in three days of protests.

In Kabul, the Afghan capital, police clubbed protesters Tuesday as a few hundred tried to march on the U.S. and Danish embassies. Angry protests also took place in several other Afghan towns and cities. No serious injuries were reported.

In neighboring Pakistan, thousands of protesters chanted anti-American slogans in Peshawar and the North Waziristan region, where support is strong for the Taliban movement and allied militants battling U.S. and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.

In Peshawar, about 4,000 demonstrators were led by the provincial chief minister, Akram Khan Durrani, who heads a government coalition of conservative Islamic parties. The protesters held the United States responsible for the caricatures, even though they were published mainly in European newspapers.

“America is responsible for insulting our holy prophet,” said Maulana Mohammad Sadiq, who teaches at a local madrasa, or Islamic school. “We are sure that the U.S. has engineered this conspiracy.”

Rendering images of Muhammad is forbidden in Islam, in which the worship of idols is blasphemous and a serious sin.

Protests were also reported Tuesday in Srinagar, India; Cairo; Tehran; northern Nigeria; and the Philippines. An Iranian newspaper said it would hold a contest for cartoons satirizing the Holocaust. The newspaper, Hamshahri, said it wanted to test whether the West’s definition of freedom of expression extended that far.

In September, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 editorial cartoons that caricatured the prophet, after a Danish author complained that he couldn’t find anyone to illustrate a book about Muhammad.

Thousands of Danish Muslims peacefully protested the cartoons last fall, but violent demonstrations did not erupt until late last month when the caricatures were republished in European newspapers, which said they were defending freedom of speech.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan on Tuesday, authorities said a suicide bomber riding a motorcycle packed with explosives attacked police headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar, killing 13 people. Most of the dead were Afghan police officers.

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Times staff writer Watson reported from Kabul and special correspondent Ali from Peshawar. Times wires services contributed to this report.