Leaders trade blame over cartoon furor, deaths

As violent protests flared throughout the Muslim world on Wednesday, taking more lives and for the first time targeting an American facility, the United States accused Iran and Syria of deliberately stoking the anger.

“Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes and the world ought to call them on it,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at a joint news conference with Israel’s foreign minister.

Asked for proof the two governments sparked violence, Rice’s spokesman Sean McCormack said, “What we have seen in Damascus and Tehran is qualitatively different than we have seen in other places.”

“Burning two embassies in Damascus doesn’t happen without the knowledge of the Syrian government,” McCormack said, adding that in Iran, where embassies have also been targeted, attacks could not have happened without the knowledge or assistance of the Iranian government.

The controversy surrounds cartoons first published in September by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten including one that showed the Prophet Muhammad with a turban resembling a bomb, but the protests row erupted in earnest late last month after the cartoons had some time to circulate.

Initial protests were aimed at Denmark and Norway, where the cartoons were republished, but have become more generalized, reflecting a broader underlying anger with the West.

On Wednesday, police shot four protesters to death to stop hundreds from marching on a southern U.S. military base, as President Bush, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Islamic organizations called for an end to deadly rioting across the Muslim world over drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.

Eleven people have been killed in the past week in protests in a dozen Afghan cities and towns. Tens of thousands of Muslims have demonstrated in the Middle East, Asia and Africa over the drawings, first published in Denmark, then Norway and several other European countries.

Appeals for calm
“We reject violence as a way to express discontent with what may be printed in a free press,” Bush said after meeting with the king. “I call upon the governments around the world to stop the violence, to be respectful, to protect property, protect the lives of innocent diplomats who are serving their countries overseas.”

Abdullah also made an appeal to both sides in the dispute.

“With all respect to press freedoms, obviously anything that vilifies the Prophet Muhammad ... or attacks Muslim sensibilities, I believe, needs to be condemned,” Abdullah said. He added that those who want to protest “should do it forthfully, articulately, express their views peacefully.

“When we see protests, when we see destruction, when we see violence — especially if it ends up taking the lives of innocent people, (it) is completely unacceptable.”’

Earlier, members of the Ulama Council — Afghanistan’s top Islamic organization — went on radio and television Wednesday to appeal for calm.

“Islam says it’s alright to demonstrate but not to resort to violence. This must stop,” said senior cleric Mohammed Usman, a council member. “We condemn the cartoons but this does not justify violence. These rioters are defaming the name of Islam.”

Incited by al-Qaida and Taliban?
Protests, sometimes involving armed men, have been directed at foreign and Afghan government targets — fueling suspicions there’s more behind the unrest than religious sensitivities.

Photo   View the cartoons that started it all Warning: Contents may be offensive

“It’s an incredibly emotive issue. This is something that really upset Afghans,” said Joanna Nathan, senior Afghanistan analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research institute. “But it is also being used to agitate and motivate the crowds by those against the government and foreign forces” in Afghanistan.

Senior Afghan officials said al-Qaida and the Taliban could be exploiting anger over the cartoons to incite violence.

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