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No let-up in sight for cartoon fury

Global protests over cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammed escalated yesterday, with two demonstrators killed in Afghanistan and Lebanon and warning shots fired outside a US consulate in Indonesia.

After a weekend that saw Denmark's embassies torched in Lebanon and Syria, fury over the images continued to spread with protests held across Afghanistan as well as in Indian-held Kashmir, Indonesia, Lebanon, Iran and Thailand.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called for calm as the Arab world seethes over the cartoons which first appeared in a Danish daily and have been reprinted by several publications in Europe, Australia and Malaysia.

"Let us calm things down. We have had enough hate and intolerance," he said on French radio. "There is not a religion in the world that condones killing, or the burning of flags."

One Afghan protester was shot and killed when police opened fire after demonstrators threw stones at them in a second day of protests by more than 1,000 people in eastern Laghman province. Four others were injured.

In Kabul about 300 people marched on Denmark's embassy, where they torched a Danish flag and threw stones at the embassy, shouting "Death to Denmark, death to Norway, death to America, death to Bush."

Around 1,000 protestors also gathered in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and burnt the flags of France, Denmark and Norway. Hundreds protested in Kandahar, while more than 5,000 marched in Parwan province near Kabul.

In Lebanon, one person died and almost 50 people were wounded during rioting in the capital Beirut which saw the Danish consulate set ablaze, police said yesterday.

One of the demonstrators involved in torching the mission was found dead in the staircase of the building, which was attacked by crowds of protestors on Sunday.

In Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya, police fired warning shots outside the US consulate to disperse 200 protesters from the hardline Front of the Defenders of Islam, who earlier smashed windows at the Danish consulate.

Some 30 armed police took away two of the group who tried to remove the US consulate's plaque, triggering fury from the mob, which shoved police. They retaliated by firing a volley of about 20 shots into the air to disperse them.

In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, hundreds of people demonstrated outside the Danish embassy, which was closed, calling for an apology from the Danish government over the offending images.

About 200 people pelted the Austrian Embassy in Tehran with petrol bombs and stones. The protesters smashed all the diplomatic mission's windows with stones and then tried to hurl petrol bombs inside. Austria currently holds the presidency of the EU.

The bombs exploded in flames against metal grilles guarding the windows, but the building did not catch fire and the flames were quickly put out by police with fire extinguishers.

The protest fizzled out after about an hour.

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