Rampage in 2 Pakistani Cities

[Said1]

Protesters Rampage in 2 Pakistani Cities

By ASIF SHAHZAD
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; 9:05 AM

LAHORE, Pakistan -- Thousands of protesters rampaged through two cities Tuesday, storming into a diplomatic district and torching Western businesses and a provincial assembly in Pakistan's worst violence against the Prophet Muhammad drawings, officials said. At least two people were killed and 11 injured.

Security forces fired into the air as they struggled to contain the unrest in the eastern city of Lahore, where protesters burned down four buildings housing a hotel, two banks, a KFC restaurant and the office of a Norwegian cell phone company, Telenor.



Pakistani students march towards the diplomatic enclave during a protest against the publication of cartoons depicting Islamic prophet Muhammad, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2006 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Police fired tear gas as they chased away more than 1,000 protesters, some brandishing sticks and throwing stones, who stormed into the heavily guarded diplomatic enclave in Pakistan's capital, demonstrating against the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed) (Anjum Naveed - AP)
U.S. and British embassy staffers were confined to their compounds until police dispersed the protesters, some of whom chanted, "Death to America!"

Witnesses said rioters also damaged more than 200 cars, dozens of shops and a large portrait of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Vandals broke the windows of a Holiday Inn, Pizza Hut and McDonald's.

Two movie theaters were torched, and clouds of tear gas and black smoke from burning vehicles drifted through streets in the city center.

A security guard shot and killed two protesters trying to force their way into a bank, Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said, adding that paramilitary forces were deployed to restore order.

Mohammed Tariq, a doctor at the state-run Mayo Hospital, said three people were being treated for serious bullet wounds, and eight more suffered injuries during clashes with police.

The protest was organized by a little-known religious group supported by local trade associations and one of the main Islamic schools in the city. Intelligence officials, however, suspected that members of outlawed Islamic radical groups may have incited the violence.

Raja Mohammed Basharat, law minister for Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital, said the organizers promised Monday that the demonstration would be peaceful. No one has been arrested for the violence, but those responsible would be punished, he said.

The unrest began Tuesday in the nation's capital, Islamabad, about 180 miles northwest of Lahore, when between 1,000 and 1,500 people, mostly students, marched into a fenced-off diplomatic enclave through the main gate, as about a dozen police looked on.

The stick-wielding crowd charged about a half-mile down the road to the British High Commission, or embassy, where the students rallied briefly until police fired tear gas.

Outside the enclave, protesters smashed street lights and burned tires while chanting "Death to America!" and other slogans. Police rounded up about 50 protesters and put them in pickup trucks.

Continued

 

[Hagbard Celine]

They burned down KFC?!?!?! Those savages! Have they no decency?!?

I love how they chant "Death to America" even though no American papers have printed the cartoons.

These idiots must really be getting desperate for attention if some political cartoons is all it takes to set them off.

They riot, destroy and kill over cartoons. It really says a lot about the "peaceful" people of Islam doesn't it?

Are we supposed to respect this crap?