Hezbollah warns US as protests continue

18 Sep 2012, 2:39 pm   -   Source: AAP
In Pakistan, thousands of students burned US flags and chanted anti-American slogans in the northwestern city of Peshawar. (Getty)

In Pakistan, thousands of students burned US flags and chanted anti-American slogans in the northwestern city of Peshawar. (Getty)

As protests continue against an anti-Islam film, Hezbollah has warned of "very dangerous" global repercussions if the full film is released.

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Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah has warned of "very dangerous" global repercussions if an anti-Islam film is released in its entirety, as the death toll from a week of violence sparked by the movie rose to 19.

An eruption of Muslim anger over a trailer of the American-made film that appeared on the internet has spread across the world, taking hold on Monday in Afghanistan, Indonesia, the West Bank, the Philippines and Yemen.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets of southern Beirut to denounce the film at Nasrallah's request, and the head of the powerful Shi'ite Muslim group surprised supporters by making a rare public appearance.

"O Prophet, we die for you, my soul and my blood are for you," he said, urging the crowd to repeat the words after him for the whole world to hear.

Nasrallah, whose Lebanese movement is blacklisted in the United States as a terrorist group, has called for a week of protests across the country over the film, describing it as the "worst attack ever on Islam".

"America must understand ... the US must understand that releasing the entire film will have dangerous, very dangerous, repercussions around the world," he told the rally.

"All our people and governments must put pressure on the international community to issue international and national laws to criminalise insults of the three world religions," he said, referring to Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

"America, great Satan! Israel, enemy of the Muslims!" cried men, women and children in Beirut.


View Anti-US protests in a larger map

The movie entitled Innocence of Muslims, believed to have been produced by a small group of extremist Christians, has sparked a week of furious protests outside US embassies and other American symbols in at least 20 countries.

In Pakistan, thousands of students burned US flags and chanted anti-American slogans in the northwestern city of Peshawar, where Osama bin Laden kept a home during the 1980s jihad against Soviet troops in adjacent Afghanistan.

In the nearby district of Upper Dir, a protester was killed and two others wounded in a shootout with police. The crowd of about 800 people set fire to a magistrate's house and the local press club.

In Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, another demonstrator died after being shot in the head during clashes with police near the US consulate on Sunday.

Up to 3000 university students, teachers and employees marched in Peshawar chanting anti-US slogans, while around 500 protesters tried to reach the US consulate in Lahore but were driven back by police with tear gas.

The US embassy in Islamabad was closed on Monday because of the risk of demonstrations and diplomats have been banned from all but essential travel throughout the country.

In neighbouring Afghanistan, protests turned violent for the first time when more than 1000 people protested in Kabul, setting police cars and containers ablaze.

In Jakarta, protesters hurled petrol bombs and clashed with Indonesian police outside the US embassy, as demonstrations in the world's most populous Muslim nation turned violent.

Police were seen kicking or dragging away some of the protesters, while one policeman was taken away in an ambulance with his face bleeding.

Many of the protesters were supporters of hardline Islamic groups and were dressed in identical white Muslim garb.

The capital's police chief Untung Rajab said 11 policemen and a protester were injured and taken to hospital, and that four protesters were arrested.

Google has barred access to the video in Egypt, India, Indonesia, Libya and Malaysia, while the government has restricted access to Google-owned YouTube in Afghanistan.

Later, Pakistan blocked access to YouTube after an order from Prime Minister Pervez Ashraf to do so over blasphemous material, following the video-sharing website's failure to take down the anti-Islam film.

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