Violence explodes as Muslims protest anti-Islam film

The protests in the Muslim world against the depiction of the religion in a film has become, if anything, stronger.

Anti-US protests by crowds whipped into fury by a film deemed offensive to Islam erupted across the Muslim world today, as violence exploded in Sudan, Lebanon and Yemen leaving two people dead and dozens wounded.

The protests broke out when Muslims emerged from mosques following the weekly Friday main prayers to voice their anger at the film made in the United States.

In Khartoum, guards on the roof of the US embassy fired warning shots as a security perimetre was breached by dozens of Islamic flag-waving protesters, part of a crowd of thousands who had earlier stormed the British embassy and set fire to the German mission, an AFP reporter said.

A police vehicle near the embassy was also torched as hundreds of demonstrators broke through an outer security cordon after one protester was hit by a police vehicle and killed, a medic and the reporter said.

Police had earlier fired volleys of tear gas in a bid to prevent the 10,000-strong crowd marching on the US embassy after they had swarmed over the German mission, attacking its facade and tearing down the flag to replace it with a black Islamist one before torching the building.

Violence also erupted in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, where a crowd of 300 Islamists attacked and set fire to a KFC restaurant, sparking clashes with police in which one person died and 25 were injured, sources said.

The attack on the US fast-food chain's outlet came as Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Lebanon for a three-day visit, calling for Christian-Muslim coexistence and attacking religious extremism.

With tempers boiling across the Muslim world over the movie since the US ambassador to Libya was killed in an attack on an American consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday, the Pentagon said it has sent a team of Marines to Yemen.

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