Pakistan Quashes Protests

Security forces arrested hundreds of Islamic hard-liners, virtually sealed off the capital and used gunfire and tear gas Sunday to quell protests against caricatures of the prophet Muhammad that have appeared in publications worldwide.

Pakistan had banned protests after riots killed five people in two cities last week.

Elsewhere in the Muslim world Sunday, demonstrators with wooden staffs and stones tried unsuccessfully to storm the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, and tens of thousands rallied in the Turkish city of Istanbul and complained about negative Western perceptions of Islam.

In Saudi Arabia, Sunday newspapers ran full-page reprints of an apology issued last month by Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first ran the caricatures in September. The Jyllands-Posten website said the reprints were an ad placed by businesses on their own initiative. It did not identify the companies or say if they were Danish.

Boycotts of Danish goods throughout the Muslim world, particularly of its famed dairy products, have taken a heavy toll on Denmark’s exporters.

Riots and protests about the cartoons began this month after they were reprinted by other European publications. But protests over the last three weeks have grown into a broader anger against the West, particularly Israel and the United States.

Demonstrations have claimed at least 45 lives worldwide, including 11 in Afghanistan during a three-day span two weeks ago and 10 on Friday in the Libyan coastal city of Benghazi. The Libyan riot outside the Italian consulate apparently was sparked by a right-wing Italian Cabinet minister who wore a T-shirt with a caricature of Muhammad.

In the Jakarta protest, about 400 people marched to the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy, where they set fire to American flags and a poster of President Bush and smashed the windows of a guard outpost before dispersing minutes later. The U.S. Embassy condemned the attack as “thuggery.”