Prophet drawings spur more protests

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan police fired on an angry crowd trying to break into a sprawling U.S. military base Monday, killing two, as protests against the publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad by Western newspapers spread across Afghanistan.

The dead were among at least five Afghans killed in separate protests Monday in Afghanistan, despite calls for calm from President Hamid Karzai.

Elsewhere, Iranian police used tear gas to disperse protesters attacking the Danish and Austrian embassies in Tehran, and stampeding protesters killed a teenage boy in Somalia, according to The Associated Press. Protests also erupted in India and Indonesia.

The Afghanistan protests were the first aimed at a U.S. target. Only one U.S. newspaper published the disputed cartoons, which appeared in a Danish newspaper in September, and were reprinted recently in European newspapers.

Police outside the main U.S. base at Bagram, north of Kabul, opened fire around 4 p.m. Monday when around 2,000 protesters surged toward the heavily guarded gates, Kabir Ahmad, district commissioner, said by phone from Bagram.

Five more demonstrators and eight police were injured in the clash, which did not involve any U.S. troops, Ahmad said.

The demonstrators "got close to the Americans and they burned the vehicles of a private company that was supplying food for the U.S. military in Bagram," Ahmad said.

Similar protests turned violent in Syria and Lebanon last weekend. In Damascus on Saturday, demonstrators burned the Danish and Norwegian embassies, and in Beirut on Sunday, protesters set the Danish Embassy ablaze before rampaging through a Christian neighborhood.

The Bush administration Monday accused the Syrian government of playing a role in the Damascus attacks and urged leaders of other Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia, to help ease tensions.

David Welch, an assistant secretary of state, met with the Syrian ambassador over the weekend "to express our strong protest and condemnation" of attacks on embassies in Damascus, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "Syria is a country where protests don't just occur spontaneously, certainly not of this sort, and not without the knowledge and support of the government," McCormack said.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, called on "all governments to take steps to lower tensions and prevent violence."