Lebanon apologises to Denmark

Beirut: Lebanon apologised yesterday to Denmark after thousands of demonstrators set fire to its diplomatic mission in Beirut a day earlier.

In Afghanistan, hundreds of Afghans clashed with police and soldiers there in the most violent of worldwide protests by Muslims over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

In the central Afghan city of Mihtarlam, one person was killed and four wounded, officials said. Police fired on the demonstrators after a man in the crowd shot at them and others threw stones and knives, said Dad Mohammad Rasa, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

Elsewhere, the main city in the Indian zone of Kashmir came to a standstill yesterday as shops, businesses and schools shut down for a day to protest the publication of caricatures in European newspapers. Dozens of protesters torched Danish flags, burned tyres, shouted slogans and hurled rocks at passing cars in several parts of Srinagar.

In Australia, Muslim leaders demanded an Australian newspaper apologise after it published one of the cartoons. The News Corporation-owned Courier-Mail, the biggest newspaper in the Queensland state capital of Brisbane, apparently became the first newspaper in Australia to publish one of the Danish caricatures on Saturday despite warnings from Muslim groups.

Syrians arrested

In Lebanon, Information Minister Gazi Aridi said early yesterday, after a late Sunday emergency Cabinet meeting, that the government had unanimously "rejected and condemned the acts of riots ... that harmed Lebanon's reputation and its civilised image and the noble aim of the demonstration."

"The Cabinet apologises to Denmark," Aridi said.

About 200 people were detained in the violence Sunday, officials said. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said the arrested included 76 Syrians, 35 Palestinians and 38 Lebanese.

The Beirut violence came a day after violent protests in neighbouring Syria, including the burning of the Danish mission there.

Thousands also took to the streets Sunday elsewhere in the Muslim world and parts of Europe, including some 3,000 Afghans who burned a Danish flag and demanding that the editors at Jyllands-Posten which originally published the cartoons be prosecuted for blasphemy. Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged forgiveness.

The Islamic Army in Iraq, a key group in the insurgency fighting US-led and Iraqi forces, posted a second Internet statement on Sunday calling for violence against citizens of countries where the caricatures have been published.

In Lebanon, the interior minister, who is responsible for the police force that failed to stop the protesters, submitted his resignation at the late Sunday cabinet session.

The parliamentary opposition and even some Cabinet colleagues of Interior Minister Hassan Sabei had demanded he step down, but the government appeared divided, saying it only "took note" of the resignation offer. The government also called for a speedy investigation.

Muslim clerics also denounced the violence on Sunday, with some wading into the mobs to try to stop the attacks.

There was widespread criticism of the failure of the Lebanese security forces, which appeared to lose control of the streets for about three hours. But Sabei defended their actions.

"Things got out of hand when elements that had infiltrated into the ranks of the demonstrators broke through security shields," he told reporters. "The one remaining option was an order to shoot, but I was not prepared to order the troops to shoot Lebanese citizens."

Sabei, like other Lebanese politicians and Grand Mufti Mohammad Rashid Kabbani, spiritual leader of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims, suggested that Islamist radicals had fanned the anger. Kabbani said outsiders among the protesters were trying to "distort the image of Islam."