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Pakistani protesters clashed with police in a number of cities after Friday prayers over an anti-Islam video, leaving at least 17 people dead.
Protests over the anti-Islam video were slower to spark in Pakistan than in the Middle East or Africa. But the country's volatile mix of weapons, Islamist groups and criminal gangs meant they turned violent fast.
Five people were killed and 60 wounded in the northwestern city of Peshawar, a gun-ridden city in the northwest of the country.At least 12 of the deaths were in Karachi, a port town, where thousands of protesters set fire to government and private property. Some of the dead included policethe Associated Press reported.
Muslims also marched in at least a half-dozen other countries, with some burning American flags and effigies of U.S. President Barack Obama.
Many of those deaths are linked to ethnic conflict and wars over land. Friday's protests were organized by Islamist political parties many of whom have links with pro-Taliban militants based in the city, said Hasan-Askari Rizvi, an independent political analyst based in Lahore.The Pakistani government called a national holiday Friday so people could protest the video peacefully. It didn't turn out like that in Karachi, one of the world's most violent cities, where on average five people have been killed a day over the past few months.
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Security was tight in Islamabad, the capital, and city where most foreigners live, after protesters on Thursday tried unsuccessfully to get inside the highly guarded diplomatic enclave. A hospital official said 45 people were wounded in Islamabad—28 protesters and 17 police. Police and protesters also clashed in Lahore. Police fired tear gas and warning shots to try to keep protesters from advancing toward U.S. missions in the cities.Criminal gangs that have thousands of armed cadre and regularly fight the police in the city likely provoked the protests, making them more combustible,he added. "Criminal gangs join them for their own agenda."
Opinion polls show a majority of Pakistanis view the U.S. as an enemy. Many people in the country believe conspiracy theories about the U.S. working to steal Pakistan's nuclear weapons or funding ethnic insurgencies against the state.
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That makes it hard for the U.S. administration to persuade Pakistanis that it had nothing to do with the anti-Islam video. This week the State Department took out advertisements in Pakistan media to distance the U.S. government from the video—a strategy that didn't appear to have had much effect.
The clashes in Pakistan came on a day when thousands protested in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia.
In Malaysia, thousands demonstrated outside the U.S. Embassy, burning U.S. and Israeli flags. "Our message to the U.S. is very clear—stop it!'' said Nasruddin Hassan Tantawi, youth chief of the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party, which played a large role in organizing the protest. "You cannot allow Americans to insult our Prophet, to insult Islam." Mr. Nasruddin said that the Islamic party didn't condone the burning of the U. S. and Israeli flags, which he called a "provocation" that organizers had stopped from getting worseU.S. diplomatic missions in neighboring Indonesia were also closed.Several hundred protesters demonstrated without violence in the capital Jakarta as well as in Surabaja. Officials had expressed concern over potential violence after a clash Monday in Jakarta between police and demonstrators ended with thrown rocks and Molotov cocktails.
The publication by French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo of cartoons making fun of Muhammad has also angered protesters. In response to the protests,France said it closed its diplomatic missions in Indonesia, Malaysia and in several countriesIn Iraq, about 3,000 protesters condemned the video and caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a French weekly.The protest in the southern city of Basra was organized by Iranian-backed Shiite groups.Police estimated that 2,800 to 3,000 people took part in the protest. They chanted, "Long live Islam'' and "Destroy America.'' Officers formed a cordon in front of the embassy, which was closed. There were no clashes and no arrests.
In Kashmir's main city of Srinagar, police fired tear gas to disperse nearly 30 women who were marching Friday under the banner of the radical Islamic women's group Dukhtaran-e-Millat chanting "Down with the U.S."
In the Sri Lanka capital of Colombo, about 2,000 Muslims burned effigies of President Barack Obama and American flags at a protest after Friday prayers, while in Bangladesh, over 2,000 people marched through the streets of the capital, Dhaka, to protest the video.
Edited By Cen Fox Post Team
