Several hurt as Afghan cartoon protests flare

Afghans protesting against cartoons in European newspapers depicting Islam's Prophet Mohammed clashed with police for a third day today and several people were hurt, a provincial official said. About 600 protesters gathered in the town of Qalat, in Zabul province in the south, and hurled stones at police and torched at least one police vehicle, said Gulab Shah Alikhel, spokesman for the provincial governor.

Seven Afghans have been killed in protests in different parts of the country this week. The cartoons were first published in a Danish newspaper in September but European newspapers reignited controversy last week when they reprinted them in a show of support for press freedom. Protesters in Afghanistan have tried to attack the Danish embassy in Kabul and other foreign installations including the main US military base at Bagram, north of Kabul.

They have also turned their anger on police trying to stop them. An interior ministry official in Kabul said five people were wounded when demonstrators tried to storm a police headquarters in Qalat. Police opened fire on a mob trying to storm a NATO peacekeeping base housing Norwegian troops in the northwestern town of Maymana yesterday killing four people. Five Norwegians were slightly hurt.

Bloody protests in May over a Newsweek magazine report of desecration of the Koran also quickly took on an anti-foreign bent, with UN and aid agency offices attacked in several parts of the country. - Reuters