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Afghan police kill four in cartoon bloodshed(Turkish Daily News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Afghan police killed four protesters on Tuesday in some of the worst violence to erupt over satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed which have provoked a deepening crisis between Europe and the Muslim World. British troops were ordered to the Afghan town of Maymana to restore order after crowds attacked a NATO base of Norwegian troops with guns and grenades and police opened fire bringing the protest death toll in the Middle East and Asia to nine. "The situation is still out of control, but we have established some kind of a show of force with F-16s," Norway's Defense Ministry said. Norway was the second country after Denmark to publish the cartoons, one of which depicts Mohammed wearing a turban resembling a bomb with a fizzing fuse. A wave of Muslim fury spread across the Middle East and Asia on Tuesday over the cartoons as leaders urged restraint and struggled to contain the protests which in recent days turned from peaceful to volatile and bloody. In Iran, which is locked in a nuclear standoff with the West and which has cut trade ties with Denmark where the images were first published, a crowd pelted the Danish Embassy in Tehran with petrol bombs and stones for a second day. After rioters set Danish missions ablaze in Syria and Lebanon at the weekend, the European Union presidency issued a strongly worded warning to 19 countries across the Middle East that they are obliged to protect EU missions. Denmark's Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller called his Iranian counterpart "and demanded in clear terms that Iran does all it can to protect the embassy and Danish lives," a spokesman said, as the Tehran mission was once again attacked. Depicting the Prophet is prohibited by Islam but moderate Muslims, while condemning the cartoons, have expressed fears radicals are hijacking the affair which has developed into a clash over press freedom and religious respect. Militants in Iraq have called for the seizure and killing of Danes and the boycott of Danish goods. In London, there were placards demanding the beheading of those who insulted Islam. Across the border from Afghanistan, more than 10,000 marched in Pakistan. The protests in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province were the largest since the start of the controversy. "Islam is being defamed through such cartoons. It is a terrorist act," said provincial chief minister Akram Durrani, who led one rally. "Those responsible for publishing such cartoons must be punished under international law." Protests spread further: Echoing calls for calm by leaders, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said: "I urge all who have authority or influence in different communities ... to engage in dialogue and build a true alliance of civilizations, founded on mutual respect." But further protests erupted on Tuesday in Egypt, Yemen, Djibouti, Gaza and Azerbaijan, while Croatia became the latest country where a newspaper printed the cartoons. The cartoons have appeared in papers in Australia, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Fiji, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, United States, Ukraine and Yemen. Iran, which has withdrawn its ambassador from Denmark, said the cartoons had "launched an anti-Islamic and Islamophobic current which will be answered." In a new twist, Iran's best-selling newspaper on Tuesday launched a competition to find the best Holocaust cartoon. Moderate Muslim groups have issued statements condemning violent protests and calling for calm in order to distance themselves from radicals who they say have an agenda. In an editorial, Saudi Arabia's Okaz urged restraint: "The use of violence, spreading chaos and destroying facilities ... only distorts Islam's image, especially after our enemies have tried to label us with so many accusations." Along with other European newspapers, Germany's top-selling Bild newspaper on Tuesday examined the background to the crisis under the headline "Should we fear Islam?". In a commentary, Bild writer Rafael Seligmann said Islam was a tolerant religion and the crisis was being exploited by extremists in the Middle East. "They are abusing Islam to make it an instrument of their hate," he wrote. Denmark's Jyllands-Posten daily has apologized for the cartoons published last September but the Danish government has refused to apologize saying it is the paper's responsibility. With diplomatic efforts accelerating, German junior foreign minister Gernot Erler urged "those who can help de-escalate the situation to come together and to avoid any steps that could further inflame this conflict, which can come dangerously close to a sort of clash of cultures." |