Protesters target embassies of UK and Germany

One protester was killed in Lebanon and thousands chanted anti-US slogans in dozens of demos from Egypt to Malaysia.

In Sudan, a prominent sheik on state radio urged protesters to march on the German Embassy to protest against alleged anti-Muslim graffiti on mosques in Berlin, and then to the US Embassy to condemn the film.

“America has long been an enemy to Islam and to Sudan,” Sheik Mohammed Jizouly said.

Several hundred Sudanese stormed into the German Embassy in the capital Khartoum, burning a car parked behind its gates and setting fire to rubbish bins.

Protesters danced around the burning barrels as palls of black smoke billowed into the sky.

Police firing tear gas drove the protesters out of the compound, and some then began to demonstrate outside the neighbouring British Embassy, shouting slogans, while others left, apparently heading to the US Embassy, which is outside the capital.

A protester was killed in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli in clashes with security forces, after a crowd of protesters set fire to two restaurants. Protesters hurled stones and glass at police in a melee that left 25 people wounded, including 18 police.

Protests were held in cities after Friday prayers, where many clerics in their sermons denounced the movie produced in the United States that denigrated the Prophet Mohammed.

The spread of protests came after attacks earlier this week on the US embassies in Cairo and the Yemeni capital Sanaa and on a US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where the ambassador and three other Americans were killed.

After security forces earlier this week stood aside in the face of protesters, Yemen and Egypt made efforts yesterday to contain them. In an apparent attempt to patch up strained ties with the United States, Egypt’s Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, went on state TV and urged Muslims to protect foreign diplomatic missions – his most direct public move to contain protests.

In east Jerusalem, Israeli police stopped a crowd of around 400 Palestinians from marching on the US consulate to protest over the film. Demonstrators threw bottles and stones at police, who responded by firing stun grenades. Four protesters were arrested.

Security forces in Yemen shot live rounds in the air and fired tear gas at a crowd of around 2,000 protesters trying to march to the US Embassy in Sanaa. Although outnumbered by protesters, security forces were able to keep the crowd about a block away from the mission.

A day earlier, hundreds of protesters chanting “Death to America” stormed the embassy compound and burned the American flag. The embassy said nobody was harmed. Yemen’s president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, quickly apologised to the United States and vowed to track down the culprits.

In Cairo, several hundred protesters massed in Tahrir Square after Friday prayers and tore up an American flag, waving a black Islamist banner.

A firebrand Salafi cleric blasted the film and in his sermon said it fell upon Muslims to defend Islam and its prophet.

Many in the crowd moved to join protesters who had been clashing for several days with police between Tahrir and the US embassy. “With our soul, our blood, we will avenge you, our Prophet,” 
they chanted as police fired tear gas.

Ahead of the clashes, the president spoke on state TV, saying: “It is required by our religion to protect our guests and their homes and places of work. So I call on all to consider this, consider the law, and not attack embassies, consulates, diplomatic missions or Egyptian property that is private or public.”

He denounced the killing of the American ambassador in Libya. His own Muslim Brotherhood group called for peaceful protests to denounce the film. The movie, Innocence Of Muslims, ridicules the Prophet, portraying him as a fraud, a womaniser and a child molester.

Meanwhile, a Libyan airport official said all flights to and from the eastern city of Benghazi had been cancelled owing to security concerns.