Syria seen as instigator

From combined dispatches

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s dominant coalition accused Syria yesterday of deliberately fomenting violent protests over cartoons about the Islamic prophet Muhammad, while the United States urged its Arab allies to help quell the spreading anger.

Syrian leaders held meetings, meanwhile, with Muqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand Iraqi cleric who has been organizing protests over the drawings in his country.

In Iran, hundreds of protesters hurled stones and firebombs at the Danish Embassy in Tehran. Hours earlier, about 200 student demonstrators threw stones at the Austrian Embassy, breaking windows and starting small fires.

In Afghanistan, troops fatally shot four protesters, some as they tried to storm a U.S. military base outside Bagram — marking the first time a protest over the issue has targeted the United States.

Largely peaceful protests were reported throughout other parts of Asia, while a teenage boy was killed when protesters stampeded in Somalia.

The Bush administration urged Saudi Arabia to show leadership in calming the anger over the cartoons, which were first published in a Danish newspaper in September, but it also criticized cartoons and articles in the Arab world that attack Christians and Jews.

“Certainly the leaders of the Saudi government might be individuals who might fulfill that [leadership] role,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “There are others in the region who also might fulfill that role as well.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan urged “all governments to take steps to lower tensions and prevent violence.”

In Beirut, the anti-Syrian coalition that dominates the Lebanese government apologized to Denmark for the burning of its consulate on Sunday, while charging that Syrian intelligence agents had sparked the trouble to destabilize their country.

“The acts of sabotage that happened in [Sunday’s] protest are the start of a coup d’etat by the Syrian regime that aims to transform Lebanon into another Iraq,” said the coalition. It specifically blamed Syrian officers led by military intelligence chief Asef Shawkat, brother-in-law of President Bashar Assad.

In Washington, Mr. McCormack said Assistant Secretary of State David Welch had called the Syrian ambassador over the weekend “to express our strong protest and condemnation” of the torching of the Danish Embassy in Damascus on Saturday.

“Syria is a country where protests don’t just occur spontaneously, certainly not of this sort, not without the knowledge and support of the government,” Mr. McCormack said.

The cartoons, several of which satirize the prophet Muhammad, have appeared in newspapers across Europe, but most of the protests are aimed at Denmark, where they first appeared. Islam forbids any depiction of Muhammad.

Protesters demanded that Danish troops be removed from Iraq when more than 4,000 people rallied yesterday in the southern city of Kut. Such demonstrations have largely been organized by Sheik al-Sadr, whose Shi’ite religious party won 30 seats in December parliamentary elections.

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