- Published: 18/09/2012 at 05:12 PM
The protest began about 2pm in heavy rain. The protesters dispersed about 3.30pm. There was no violence.
The demonstrators said they only wanted to express their dissatisfaction with the film, which since last Tuesday has drawn protests from Muslims in about 20 countries around the world.
About three companies of police were deployed to ensure security for the embassy. Steel barriers were erected in a long line along Witthayu Road on the embassy side.
In Afghanistan, a female suicide car bomber attacked a van in Kabul on Tuesday, killing 12 people, including eight South Africans, in an assault insurgents said was in revenge for an anti-Islam film made in America.
The bombing on a highway leading to Kabul international airport was the second suicide attack in the heavily fortified city in 10 days, reviving questions about stability as NATO accelerates a troop withdrawal and hands over to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
It came as officers revealed that Western troops are scaling back joint operations with Afghans after 51 NATO soldiers were shot dead this year by their local colleagues, a setback for the war strategy that focuses on training Afghans to take over.
An AFP photographer saw at least six bodies lying among the wreckage of a gutted minivan, and another vehicle destroyed by flames still burning in the middle of the highway, with debris flung all around.
"At around 6.45 am (0215 GMT) a suicide bomber using a sedan blew himself up along the airport road in District 15. As a result, nine workers of a foreign company and three Afghan civilians are dead, and two police are wounded," police said in a statement.
An Afghan and a Western security official said nine foreigners were killed. The South African foreign ministry said eight of its citizens were among the dead.
"The foreigners were from a private company working at the airport," the Afghan official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A spokesman for NATO's US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it had no reports that its personnel were among the casualties.
Afghanistan's second largest insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, claimed responsibility, saying it was carried out by a woman to avenge the "Innocence of Muslims" film, which has sparked a weekof furious anti-US riots across Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.
"The bombing was carried out by a woman named Fatima. The bombing was in retaliation for the insult to our Prophet," spokesman Zubair Sidiqi in a telephone call to AFP from an undisclosed location.
It is extremely rare for the faction to claim a suicide attack in Afghanistan. It is also rare for women, few of whom drive in Afghanistan, to carry out suicide attacks.
A police investigator said he believed the bomber was female, after finding parts of a woman's leg.
On Monday, protests turned violent for the first time in Afghanistan over the low-budget trailer for the film, which is believed to have been produced by extremist Christians, as hundreds hurled stones at a US military base and clashed with police.
In the northern city of Kunduz, several hundred university students threw stones at police and set fire to photographs of US President Barack Obama in a fresh protest on Tuesday.
Under new orders, most joint patrols and advisory work with Afghan troops -- the cornerstone of NATO departure plans -- will have to be approved by a regional commander.
Cooperation with smaller units will have to be "evaluated on a case-by-case basis and approved by RC (regional) commanders," ISAF said in a statement.
NATO, which is helping the Afghan government fight a Taliban-led insurgency now in its 11th year, is gradually withdrawing its 112,600 remaining troops.
But as so-called insider attacks have grown, US commanders have gradually acknowledged the assaults pose a serious threat to the war effort and have struggled to stem the problem.
The commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General John Allen, "has directed all operational commanders to review force protection and tactical activities in the light of the current circumstances", a US military officer in Washington said in an email.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, speaking at a news conference in Beijing, said the attacks were worrisome but that he believed Allen had taken the right approach to counter the problem.
But he insisted the insider assaults would not delay or derail plans to complete a drawdown of troops by the end of 2014 as planned.
The decision came after six ISAF soldiers were shot dead by suspected Afghan police and after the Taliban destroyed six US fighter jets in an unprecedented assault on a major base in the south this weekend.
It was unclear how the new rules for joint patrols might affect the plan to pull out the bulk of NATO combat forces, as some Afghan units are considered ill-prepared to begin operating independently.
Share your thoughts
- Discussion 1 : 19/09/2012 at 08:43 PM
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D19: The focus should be not on the container, but on the contents. If it is a peaceful religion, act like it.
- Discussion 2 : 19/09/2012 at 01:11 AM
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The 300 or so protesters at the US embassy protested peacefully as they have every right to do. To defend their action is not in any way a to condone violent protest elsewhere. The US embassy is a valid focus of protest as the representative of a society which permits hateful caricature of what is validly sacred to many Muslims. Just as denial of the Holocaust is forbidden in many countries as offensive, so flagrant insults against a valued religious belief should be restrained. We cannot expect Muslims to quickly adopt a liberal tolerance. In times past Christians, when they had the power to do so, also reacted with violence to blasphemy. Our current liberal values should motivate us to protect the sensitivities to crass insult of our Muslim brothers. As they experience our concern they will come to realise that violent response is also not acceptable.
- Discussion 3 : 19/09/2012 at 12:56 AM
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There's plenty of films made about the worlds relegious prophets, can't begin to count how many times Jesus or Buddha has been portrayed, in film and print, under different and questionable conditions. So just what the heck's up with these darn Muslims that they can't take a little criticism of Mohamed without going ballistic and trying to blow everybody up with IED's and suicide bombers. Is they're God different than everybody else's God? Is there even more than one God? And why do they always think to blame the US as the root of their toil and trouble
Really?
What do they want?
When will they be happy?
- Discussion 4 : 19/09/2012 at 12:30 AM
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This group of followers always have so many problems all over, bring on Monte Python and there are no problems hurray hurray !!!
- Discussion 5 : 19/09/2012 at 12:22 AM
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While it's good to hear that this protest went ahead without any violence, I'm wondering if it caused any traffic disruption, which wouldn't have won any brownie points with frustrated motorists who really don't need such an unnecessary protest.
I'm wondering why these protestors don't protest about the violence in the far south of Thailand instead. Just today there was yet again violence in what a Thailand expert has claimed is the third most dangerous region of the world after Iraq and Afghanistan.
Unbelievable given this is the same Thailand that hosts 20 million overseas tourists a year coming to it's beaches and visiting it's temples, sampling the nightlife and going shopping.
- Discussion 6 : 19/09/2012 at 12:21 AM
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D11 - No, I don't think the protesters last month were concerned that giving Thaksin a visa made a complete mockery of America's immigration laws. They were upset that giving Thaksin a visa demonstrated a complete disrespect of Thailand's justice system. That the US has joined in nearly every other nation in the world to allow entry to Thaksin shows there is a global belief that Thaksin's sentence was more political than criminal. This doesn't sit too well for some in Thailand as one of its institutions is challenged.
- Discussion 7 : 18/09/2012 at 11:35 PM
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First of all, the USA government did not produce, release nor support this movie. Second, the movie did not kill or hurt anyone. The muslims are choosing to rant and rave and kill and murder innocent people from several countries than claim that this movie gives them justification to do that. Well, if that is their train of thought, get rid of the lot of them. Irrational murder and mayhem shows they are not responsible people and should not be allowed in society. Female suicide car bomber in Kabul killing innocents. Sorry the muslims in some more impovershed countries are upset and repressed. They no doubt are envious of the USA a little bit. The USA has around 1500 very large Mosques and the USA is one of the most religion tolerant countries in the world. You can't have a large christian church in China or in most of the arab nations. Certainly not as easily as big mosques can be built in the USA. Have you ever been to Los Angeles and the Commerce casino? Look at all the muslim people or people that claim to be that are gambling and drinking.
- Discussion 8 : 18/09/2012 at 10:12 PM
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I fail to see how Muslims lashing out around the world has any relation a film .
- Discussion 9 : 18/09/2012 at 10:02 PM
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Education, education and education. This is the solution at your problem.
- Discussion 10 : 18/09/2012 at 08:36 PM
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They did not need to do much, the American Government had already given them a victory by closing the embassy, which should have stayed open as as act of defiance. Why is America so often arrogant at the wrong times and wimp out when they should stand defiantly?
@ Discussion 7 Those protesters certainly had a valid cause, giving that fugitive a visa made a complete mockery of America's immigration laws.
- Discussion 11 : 18/09/2012 at 08:36 PM
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Why don't these Muslim demonstrators and suicide bombers go after the people who made this film if they feel so strongly about it? Instead they are attacking people and property belonging to people who have absolutely nothing to do with the film and in many cases are probably not even aware of its existence. A very cowardly way to make your point.
- Discussion 12 : 18/09/2012 at 08:18 PM
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they have every right to express themselves,the filmaker is an egyptian living in america,it wasnt the americans who make this film,not right to make this film but why go and kill a amercian ambassordor in his office in libya,what did he do, and as 12 s,african in afghan what have they done to get killed same in deep south thailand good muslims getting killed as in afghan, any many other place, these cowarss terrorist,terrorise the good muslim people to force their ideaology upon them,but dont blame amercians blame this egyptian disturbed person who made this film
- Discussion 13 : 18/09/2012 at 07:56 PM
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To bring these protests to the gov't offics of the USA shows that people do not want/understand freedom of speech, religion, press. The US gov't had nothing to do with the production of this totally amateurish video. Hence, the only reason to be angry at the US for it - is to say that the US gov't should have stopped it - what a shame that so many people in the world still do not understand the ideas behind freedom of speech, religion, and press. I will believe that the people at this protest truly love their God when they also protest the slaughter of Muslims at the hands of other Muslims with suicide bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will believe their love of Islam when they protest the poisoning of drinking waters at multiple all-girls schools in Afghanistan by Muslim men/Imam's. I will belive they follow the tenants of their faith when I see them show the same concern for the murder of school teachers and monks here in Thailand in the South. The blatant hypocrisy of many in the Muslim world is only overshadowed by the cowardice of the many nations that will not stand-up to them......
- Discussion 14 : 18/09/2012 at 07:34 PM
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This group of anti-US embassy protesters seem much more reasonable than last month's. Those fanatics who were against the US giving Thaksin a visa were much more threatening.
- Discussion 15 : 18/09/2012 at 07:00 PM
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We respect all religion… says the banner.
Is that why the Sunnis and the Shi’ites are always so chummy?
- Discussion 16 : 18/09/2012 at 06:58 PM
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I've seen parts of the movie. The quality of the movie is lousy and the message could be twisted, but the current number of casualties in Muslim countries shows that they are not really innocent... At least it is showing that groups of fanatic Muslims are intolerant, irrational and over-sensitive...
- Discussion 17 : 18/09/2012 at 06:57 PM
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People need to understand that this uprising isn't about the film.
- Discussion 18 : 18/09/2012 at 06:13 PM
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Protest all u want,lets be honest how many of these so called protest groups have actually sat down and watched the film ? most are just looking for trouble as what has happened around the world
- Discussion 19 : 18/09/2012 at 06:05 PM
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Great that there was no violence. I wonder how many of the approx. 300 protesters had actually seen the film in question and how many felt any guilt that 3 companies of police were needed just to supervise this protest.
- Discussion 20 : 18/09/2012 at 06:05 PM
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Somehow, John Lennon's Imagine is singing in my mind after reading this kind of news stories, but I believe I'm not the only one.
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