Syria: Another Western war crime in the making

Dr Paul Craig Roberts

by Paul Craig Roberts

Update:

The war criminals in Washington and other Western capitals are determined to maintain their lie that the Syrian government used chemical weapons. Having failed in efforts to intimidate the UN chemical inspectors in Syria, Washington has demanded that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon withdraw the chemical weapons inspectors before they can assess the evidence and make their report. The UN Secretary General stood up to the Washington war criminals and rejected their demand. However, as with Iraq, Washington’s decision to commit aggression against Syria is not based on any facts.

The US and UK governments have revealed none of the “conclusive evidence” they claim to have that the Syrian government used chemical weapons. Listening to their voices, observing their body language, and looking into their eyes, it is completely obvious that John Kerry and his British and German puppets are lying through their teeth. This is a far more shameful situation than the massive lies that former Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell claims that he was deceived by the White House and did not know that he was lying. Kerry and the British, French, and German puppets know full well that they are lying.

The face that the West presents to the world is the brazen face of a liar.

Washington and its British and French puppet governments are poised to yet again reveal their criminality. The image of the West as War Criminal is not a propaganda image created by the West’s enemies, but the portrait that the West has painted of itself.

The UK Independent reports that over this past week-end Obama, Cameron, and Hollande agreed to launch cruise missile attacks against the Syrian government within two weeks despite the lack of any authorization from the UN and despite the absence of any evidence in behalf of Washington’s claim that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the Washington-backed “rebels”, largely US supported external forces, seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.

Indeed, one reason for the rush to war is to prevent the UN inspection that Washington knows would disprove its claim and possibly implicate Washington in the false flag attack by the “rebels,” who assembled a large number of children into one area to be chemically murdered with the blame pinned by Washington on the Syrian government.

Another reason for the rush to war is that Cameron, the UK prime minister, wants to get the war going before the British parliament can block him for providing cover for Obama’s war crimes the way that Tony Blair provided cover for George W. Bush, for which Blair was duly rewarded. What does Cameron care about Syrian lives when he can leave office into the waiting arms of a $50 million fortune.

The Syrian government, knowing that it is not responsible for the chemical weapons incident, has agreed for the UN to send in chemical inspectors to determine the substance used and the method of delivery. However, Washington has declared that it is “too late” for UN inspectors and that Washington accepts the self-serving claim of the al Qaeda affiliated “rebels” that the Syrian government attacked civilians with chemical weapons.  See also Syria Accepts UN Inspectors, US Spurns Call as ‘Too Late’.

In an attempt to prevent the UN chemical inspectors who arrived on the scene from doing their work, the inspectors were fired upon by snipers in “rebel” held territory and forced off site, although a later report from RT says the inspectors have returned to the site to conduct their inspection.

The corrupt British government has declared that Syria can be attacked without UN authorization, just as Serbia and Libya were militarily attacked without UN authorization. In other words, the Western democracies have already established precedents for violating international law. “International law? We don’t need no stinking international law!” The West knows only one rule: Might is Right. As long as the West has the Might, the West has the Right.

In a response to the news report that the US, UK, and France are preparing to attack Syria, the Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov, said that such unilateral action is a “severe violation of international law,” and that the violation was not only a legal one but also an ethical and moral violation. Lavrov referred to the lies and deception used by the West to justify its grave violations of international law in military attacks on Serbia, Iraq, and Libya and how the US government used preemptive moves to undermine every hope for peaceful settlements in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

Once again Washington has preempted any hope of peaceful settlement. By announcing the forthcoming attack, the US destroyed any incentive for the “rebels” to participate in the peace talks with the Syrian government. On the verge of these talks taking place, the “rebels” now have no incentive to participate as the West’s military is coming to their aid.

In his press conference Lavrov spoke of how the ruling parties in the US, UK, and France stir up emotions among poorly informed people that, once aroused, have to be satisfied by war. This, of course, is the way the US manipulated the public in order to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. But the American public is tired of the wars, the goal of which is never made clear, and has grown suspicious of the government’s justifications for more wars.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that “Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria’s government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed.”  However, Obama could not care less that only 9 percent of the public supports his warmongering. As former president Jimmy Carter recently stated, “America has no functioning democracy.” It has a police state in which the executive branch has placed itself above all law and the Constitution.

This police state is now going to commit yet another Nazi-style war crime of unprovoked aggression. At Nuremberg the Nazis were sentenced to death for precisely the identical actions being committed by Obama, Cameron, and Hollande. The West is banking on might, not right, to keep it out of the criminal dock.

The US, UK, and French governments have not explained why it matters whether people in the wars initiated by the West are killed by explosives made of depleted uranium or with chemical agents or any other weapon. It was obvious from the beginning that Obama was setting up the Syrian government for attack. Obama demonized chemical weapons–but not nuclear “bunker busters” that the US might use on Iran. Then Obama drew a red line, saying that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrians was such a great crime that the West would be obliged to attack Syria. Washington’s UK puppets, William Hague and Cameron, have just repeated this nonsensical claim. The final step in the frame-up was to orchestrate a chemical incident and blame the Syrian government.

What is the West’s real agenda? This is the unasked and unanswered question. Clearly, the US, UK, and French governments, which have displayed continuously their support for dictatorial regimes that serve their purposes, are not the least disturbed by dictatorships. They brand Assad a dictator as a means of demonizing him for the ill-informed Western masses. But Washington, UK, and France support any number of dictatorial regimes, such as the ones in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and now the military dictatorship in Egypt that is ruthlessly killing Egyptians without any Western government speaking of invading Egypt for “killing its own people.”

Clearly also, the forthcoming Western attack on Syria has nothing whatsoever to do with bringing “freedom and democracy” to Syria any more than freedom and democracy were reasons for the attacks on Iraq and Libya, neither of which gained any “freedom and democracy.”

The Western attack on Syria is unrelated to human rights, justice or any of the high sounding causes with which the West cloaks its criminality.

The Western media, and least of all the American presstitutes, never ask Obama, Cameron, or Hollande what the real agenda is. It is difficult to believe than any reporter is sufficiently stupid or gullible to believe that the agenda is bringing “freedom and democracy” to Syria or punishing Assad for allegedly using chemical weapons against murderous thugs trying to overthrow the Syrian government.

Of course, the question wouldn’t be answered if asked. But the act of asking it would help make the public aware that more is afoot than meets the eye. Originally, the excuse for Washington’s wars was to keep Americans safe from terrorists. Now Washington is endeavoring to turn Syria over to jihad terrorists by helping them to overthrow the secular, non-terrorist Assad government. What is the agenda behind Washington’s support of terrorism?

Perhaps the purpose of the wars is to radicalize Muslims and, thereby, destabilize Russia and even China. Russia has large populations of Muslims and is bordered by Muslim countries. Even China has some Muslim population. As radicalization spreads strife into the only two countries capable of being an obstacle to Washington’s world hegemony, Western media propaganda and the large number of US financed NGOs, posing as “human rights” organizations, can be counted on by Washington to demonize the Russian and Chinese governments for harsh measures against “rebels.”

Another advantage of the radicalization of Muslims is that it leaves former Muslim countries in long-term turmoil or civil wars, as is currently the case in Iraq and Libya, thus removing any organized state power from obstructing Israeli purposes.

Secretary of State John Kerry is working the phones using bribes and threats to build acceptance, if not support, for Washington’s war crime-in-the-making against Syria.

Washington is driving the world closer to nuclear war than it ever was even in the most dangerous periods of the Cold War. When Washington finishes with Syria, the next target is Iran. Russia and China will no longer be able to fool themselves that there is any system of international law or restraint on Western criminality. Western aggression is already forcing both countries to develop their strategic nuclear forces and to curtail the Western-financed NGOs that pose as “human rights organizations,” but in reality comprise a fifth column that Washington can use to destroy the legitimacy of the Russian and Chinese governments.

Russia and China have been extremely careless in their dealings with the United States. Essentially, the Russian political opposition is financed by Washington. Even the Chinese government is being undermined. When a US corporation opens a company in China, it creates a Chinese board on which are put relatives of the local political authorities. These boards create a conduit for payments that influence the decisions and loyalties of local and regional party members. The US has penetrated Chinese universities and intellectual attitudes. The Rockefeller University is active in China as is Rockefeller philanthropy. Dissenting voices are being created that are arrayed against the Chinese government. Demands for “liberalization” can resurrect regional and ethnic differences and undermine the cohesiveness of the national government.

Once Russia and China realize that they are riven with American fifth columns, isolated diplomatically, and outgunned militarily, nuclear weapons become the only guarantor of their sovereignty. This suggests that nuclear war is likely to terminate humanity well before humanity succumbs to global warming or rising national debts.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.

Copyright © Paul Craig Roberts 2013.

Originally published on Paul Craig Roberts – Institute for Political Economy. Reproduced with the author’s permission. Contact information for syndication rights.

Riot in France after Muslim veil check

Burka LadyMuslim rioters threw rocks and set fires following a police check of a completely veiled woman in Trappes, a western suburb of Paris, newspaper Le Parisien reported Saturday.

The gathering of 200 to 400 people became “violent” at about 8:30 pm (1830 GMT) Friday, the report said. The mob vandalized a bus shelter and set refuse bins on fire.

Two police officers were injured, a police union spokesman said. An unconfirmed report said that one boy was injured and rushed to hospital.

Police surrounded their station with emergency vehicles to protect it from the rioters.

The mob in the town of 30,000, 30 kilometres from central Paris, was angered by the arrest of a 21-year-old man on Thursday, who attacked a police officer after objecting to a police check of his fully veiled wife.

In France, the wearing of burqas and other veils in public is prohibited. – dpa

Marine Le Pen to face prosecution for comparing Muslims to Nazis

Marine Le Pen
Marine Le Pen

Marine Le Pen faces prosecution for comparing Muslim immigration to the Nazi occupation of France after the European Parliament’s legal committee recommended that the nationalist leader be stripped of her immunity.

The full parliament is now expected to formally lift her protection from prosecution as an MEP after a vote on the recommendation on July 3, clearing the way for her to face race hate charges in a French court.

Sajjad Karim, a British Tory MEP on the parliament’s legal affairs committee, voted in favour Ms Le Pen losing her parliamentary immunity.

“There is a red line between freedom of speech and inciting racial hatred,” he said. “I, along with many other MEPs, today voted to drop Ms Le Pen’s immunity and I am confident that the majority of the European Parliament will follow our lead in July.”

French prosecutors asked the EU assembly last November to lift the French National Front leader’s immunity as a lawmaker so she could be prosecuted for remarks likening Islamic prayers to the Nazi occupation.

Ms Le Pen faces charges for comments she made in a speech to National Front supporters in December 2010 when she denounced the holding of Muslim prayers in the streets of France in areas where there are no mosques.

“For those who like to talk about World War II, to talk about occupation, we could talk about, for once, the occupation of our territory. There are no armoured vehicles, no soldiers, but it is an occupation all the same and it weighs on people,” she said.

She follows in the footsteps of her father Jean Marie, founder of the French National Front, who was stripped of his legal protection as an MEP to face German Holocaust denials charges in 1998, he had previously been convicted of similar charge in France. – Daily Telegraph

South African Jews, Muslims fly to Washington to heal the rift

South African Jews and Muslims meet at the South African ambassador's residence in Washington

Partnership between Jews and Muslims in South Africa flourished when both communities joined forces in the struggle to end the apartheid regime. But as the common cause uniting them was resolved in the early 1990s, Jews and Muslims, both minorities in South Africa, grew apart and allowed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to become a wedge issue and a source of ongoing tension.

Now, leaders of the two communities are in Washington are trying to find ways, thousands of miles away from their homeland, to rebuild the bridges.

“The greatest challenge we’ve encountered is South Africa,” said Rabbi Marc Schneier, who is the founder and president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, the organization that put together the joint mission of Muslim and Jewish leaders to the United States. This challenge, which he sees as being more difficult than in other parts of the world in which the group has been trying to promote interfaith dialogue, is made up of a community of 70,000 Jews and a Muslim population 10 times its size, both of which have been far behind the United States in terms of interfaith cooperation. The reason, leaders of both communities agree, has to do more with the Middle East than with relations on the ground in Africa.

“Obviously, Israel is a huge issue,” said Rabbi Ron Hendler, who represented South Africa’s chief rabbi in the mission to Washington. “Many in the Muslim community feel very, very strongly about the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and many in the Jewish community are very Zionist.”

Sitting around a breakfast table at the residence of Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to the U.S. and one the country’s leading Muslim activists, leaders of the two communities expressed their eagerness to move closer. Rasool, who co-founded the Call of Islam, a Muslim organization formed to fight apartheid, told the Forward that he would like to see the discussion about Jewish-Muslim relations begin not in the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, but rather in 1492, when Christians expelled Jews and Muslims from Spain, a place in which both communities flourished together. Like other activists, Rasool lamented the break in Muslim-Jewish cooperation once South Africa transitioned beyond its racist past. “We all cooperated in fighting apartheid. Our humanity forced us to reach our common values,” he said, “but as soon as that evil was pushed down, we allowed ourselves to retreat to the issue of Israel-Palestine.”

Speaking to two dozens activists gathered at his home, Rasool said that in order to build bridges, both communities need to “divest from the exclusive victimhood.” He quoted South African leader Nelson Mandela, who “knew that victims can’t make peace.”

In practical terms, organizers hope the short trip to Washington can inspire South African Jews and Muslims to follow some of the models set in the United States for interfaith dialogue, including the idea of twinning synagogues and mosques, the flagship program of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

The organization has long sought to spread the idea of interfaith relations beyond the United States and has already conducted programs in Europe and Latin America. This mission, which alongside delegates from South Africa also included representatives from Australia and from New Zealand, is the first attempt to reach out to Jews and Muslims in the Southern Hemisphere.

“South Africa is such a deeply prejudiced society,” said David Jacobson, executive director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the community’s umbrella organization. But it is this deep divide that gave participants hope that just as South Africa overcame its racial tensions, it can build bridges between Jews and Muslims. “If we can do it in South Africa, we can be a beacon to the world,” Jacobson said. – Jewish Daily Forward

Muslims fear Serb win in Srebrenica

Srebrenica
Srebrenica

Muslims from Srebrenica, the site of Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II, fear a Bosnian Serb win in Sunday’s local polls would represent “the final step of a genocide”.

Bosnian Serb forces summarily executed some 8,000 Muslim men and boys after they captured the eastern town in July 1995. Two international courts have ruled the massacre a genocide.

For almost 17 years, Srebrenica Muslims who lived elsewhere after fleeing the 1992-95 Bosnian war were allowed to vote in local elections, ensuring the town had a Muslim mayor.

But this year, they have been stripped of that right after complex local voting laws were reformed, prompting fears that Serbs who have a slight majority in the town can now vote in their candidate.

A Serb win “would be quite simply the final step of a genocide, an ethnic cleansing” of Srebrenica, warned Kada Hotic, member of an organisation of Srebrenica mothers who lost her husband and a son in the massacre.

“Everything will be in danger, the existence of the Muslims who returned to Srebrenica, our memorial centre. We could even see a Serb mayor banning the yearly genocide commemoration,” she said, explaining it is the mayor who needs to clear permits for the event.

The remaining Muslims were expelled and most of them never returned to Srebrenica, which is now in the Serb-dominated part of the Balkan country.

Returnee Hatidza Mehmedovic, who lost her husband and two sons in the genocide, said she feels the new rules unfairly reward Serb wartime brutality.

“Serbs will never accept the truth of what happened here. They know very well but their politics will not allow them to admit it,” she said from her house on the hills overlooking the town.

Srebrenica’s pre-war population was around 37,000 residents: 27,000 Muslims and 8,300 Serbs. Today the municipality, hard-hit by the economic crisis and with an unemployment rate of over 50 percent, has about 6,000 inhabitants.

But thanks to several remaining loopholes, both camps have drummed up people to vote in Srebrenica, so some 14,000 voters divided almost equally among Muslims and Serbs are now registered.

Incumbent Srebrenica mayor Camil Durakovic, himself a massacre survivor, said he would consider leaving town if “those who deny genocide” win.

“It will be an end. I have a three-year-old daughter to think about,” said the 33-year-old, who returned to Srebrenica in 2005 after spending almost a decade in the United States as a refugee.

“Here we should have a council that does not deny genocide, which is a sacred issue for Muslims and every normal human being,” he said.

This Sunday, only those officially registered in Srebrenica will be entitled to vote.

Muslims blast the international community, which has refused to interfere, although it has the power to do so through its high representative in Bosnia.

“The international community has abandoned us now … Srebrenica should be given back to the Muslims,” Hotic said, calling for a special status for the town.

Serb politicians have fanned the flames of the controversy with Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik telling a rally in Srebrenica in September: “There was no genocide!” evoking a “Western plan to blame the Serb community.”

Serb mayoral candidate Vesna Kocevic said those who committed war crimes should be brought to justice, but she avoids using the term genocide.

“Serb people carry the burden of these events … why should my children, who were aged one and two at the time, suffer from it today?” she said.

On Sunday, some 3.1 million Bosnians will go to the polls in 136 municipalities to elect local councils and mayors. – AFP

Kate, Muslims and freedom of speech

by Karin Roodt

The French government has refused to allow a protest against the American-made film “Innocence of Muslims” planned for this coming Saturday. The march was triggered by the satirical anti-Muslim cartoons that had appeared in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The cartoons show the Muslim prophet in naked form.

About 150 people have been arrested in Paris over the weekend, while French embassies and schools in at least 20 countries have been closed. France also had to hastily deploy tanks in Lebanon to protect their missions.

Mohammed Moussaoui, President of the French Muslim Council told Le Monde newspaper that he “was deeply concerned about this irresponsible act that could only exacerbate tensions and provoke damaging reactions”.

On the other side of the Channel, British lawyers concentrated on limiting freedom of expression after the publication of naked pictures of Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge.

The context and public responsibility of the two cases are clearly diametrically opposed, if one takes the risk of public violence into account. By choosing such satirical images the French magazine poured fuel on the fire, and endangered people’s lives.

In addition, the Western insistence on certain freedoms is one that is foreign to other cultures and the whole affair has the hallmark of a clash of civilisations ignored by the mainstream media. Not to mention the double standards applied to the British monarchy on the one hand and to Muslims on the other.

Let the advocates of unlimited freedom of expression pay the price for it. That is the only way in which they will brought under the impression of the limits to multiculturalism.

 (Translated from the Afrikaans).

French magazine risks Muslim ire with cartoons of Prophet Mohammed

French magazine is set to increase Muslim ire by printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed Wednesday a day after 12 died in an Afghan suicide bombing, the deadliest attack linked to an anti-Islamic film.

A female suicide bomber killed 12 people in Afghanistan on Tuesday in the deadliest single attack attributed to the controversial film which has sparked furious protests across the Muslim world.

The deaths raised to over 30 the toll from incidents linked to the trailer for “Innocence of Muslims,” a film produced by extremist Christians in the United States that depicts the Prophet Mohammed as a thuggish womaniser.

After a week that has seen protests in at least 20 countries, there were fears that the wave of anger in the Islamic world could hit harder in Europe as it emerged that French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo was planning to publish cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Mohammed in its Wednesday edition.

Charlie Hebdo is no stranger to controversy over its handling of the issues relating to Islam.

Last year it published an edition “guest-edited” by the Prophet Mohammed that it called Sharia Hebdo. The magazine’s offices in Paris were subsequently fire-bombed.

Charlie Hebdo’s latest move was greeted with immediate calls from political and religious leaders to avoid inflaming the situation.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault issued a statement expressing his “disapproval of all excesses”.

The magazine’s editor, originally a cartoonist who uses the name Charb, said the images would “shock those who will want to be shocked”.

Dalil Boubakeur, the senior cleric at Paris’s biggest mosque, appealed for France’s Muslims to remain calm.

President Barack Obama said Tuesday he expected governments in the Muslim world to protect American diplomats, despite their revulsion at a film made on US soil deemed offensive to their faith.

“The message we have to send to the Muslim world is that we expect you to work with us, to keep our people safe,” Obama said during a taping of the “Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS TV.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, said “we are taking aggressive steps to protect” diplomatic missions worldwide.

Among those killed so far have been four US diplomatic staff in Libya, including ambassador Chris Stevens, who died when militants laid siege to the US mission in Benghazi a week ago on September 11 in a four-hour attack.

Clinton said the FBI had launched an investigation inside Libya, and she vowed that “we will not rest until the people who orchestrated this attack are found and punished.”

In Afghanistan, Hezb-i-Islami, the second largest insurgent group after the Taliban, said the suicide bomb attack was to avenge the “insult” of the film.

“The bombing was in retaliation for the insult to our Prophet,” spokesman Zubair Sidiqi told AFP by phone from an undisclosed location.

Security officials said nine foreigners including South Africans were among those killed on a highway leading to Kabul airport when the bomber blew up her station wagon alongside a minivan carrying foreign workers.

Taliban fighters last week stormed a British-run airfield, killing two US Marines and destroying six US fighter jets in another act of vengeance.

In Lebanon, the head of the Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah, listed in the United States as a terrorist organisation, made a rare public appearance to warn of “very dangerous” repercussions if the entire film is released, rather than the 14-minute trailer that has already sparked outrage.

Al-Qaeda’s franchise in North Africa urged Muslims to storm US embassies and kill American envoys in Muslim countries, monitoring group IntelCenter said.

The film-maker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Egyptian Copt and fraudster who was sentenced to 21 months in prison in the United States in June 2010, has not been seen since Saturday when he was questioned.

The risks now facing those involved in the film’s production were underlined when a Salafist cleric in Egypt called Monday for the deaths of all those involved in its making.

Before dawn on Monday, officers from the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department escorted four members of Nakoula’s family to join him in hiding.

Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered that seven US-based Egyptian Copts be tried over their role in the film, accusing them of “insulting the Islamic religion, insulting the Prophet and inciting sectarian strife.”

However Interpol in a statement said it was not aware of any request from Egypt for the arrest of people related to the film but stressed that its charter “forbids it from undertaking any matter of a predominantly political, military, religious or racial nature.”

In Pakistan, two protesters died after demonstrating against the film close to the Afghan border and outside the US consulate in Karachi.

Police used tear gas to disperse more than 2,000 protesters trying to reach the US consulate in the city of Peshawar, chanting anti-US slogans and burning the Stars and Stripes flag.

Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan blocked access to YouTube, following the video-sharing website’s failure to take down the clip of the film. Saudi Arabia and Russia indicated they may follow suit.

In east Jerusalem hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli border police, hurling stones and firebombs at a checkpoint.

Another round of protests over Prophet Mohammad movie

Muslim protest in London near US embassy

(Reuters) – Protesters in Afghanistan and Indonesia burnt U.S. flags and chanted “Death to America” on Monday in renewed demonstrations over a film mocking the Prophet Mohammad that has unleashed a wave of anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim and Arab world.

Indonesian police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who massed outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, capital of the most populous Muslim nation.

In Kabul, thousands of protesters took to the streets, setting fire to cars and shops and throwing stones at police.

“We will defend our prophet until we have blood across our bodies. We will not let anyone insult him,” said one protester in the Afghan capital. “Americans will pay for their dishonor.”

The demonstrations were the latest across the world provoked by a short film made with private funds in the United States that depicted the Prophet Mohammad as a fool and womanizer.

In a torrent of violence last week, the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in an attack in Benghazi and U.S. and other foreign embassies were stormed in several cities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East by enraged Muslims. At least nine other people have been killed.

The United States has sent ships, extra troops and special forces to protect its interests and citizens in the Middle East while a number of its embassies have evacuated staff and are on high alert for trouble.

The situation poses an unexpected foreign policy headache for U.S. President Barack Obama as he campaigns for re-election in November, even though his administration has condemned the film as reprehensible and disgusting.

Despite efforts early in his tenure to improve relations with the Arab and Muslim world, he faces a number of problems including the continued U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear program, the Syrian civil war and the fall-out from the Arab Spring revolts.

US, ISRAEL FLAGS BURNED

The renewed protests on Monday dashed any hopes that the furor over the film might fade despite an appeal from the senior cleric in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest shrines, for calm over the weekend.

In the Kabul demonstration, protesters shouted “Death to America” and burned the flags of the United Sates and of Israel, a country reviled by many Muslims and Arabs because of the Palestinian issue.

Police Lieutenant-General Fahem Qayem put the number of demonstrators at between 3,000 and 4,000 but said police had the situation under control.

Embassies in central Kabul, including the U.S. and British missions, were placed on lockdown and violence flared near fortified housing compounds for foreign workers.

Rallies also took place in London, Australia, Turkey and Pakistan on Sunday, showing the global scale of the outrage.

In other developments on Monday, Iran said it would hunt for those responsible for making the film.

“The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns this inappropriate and offensive action,” First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said. “Certainly it will search for, track, and pursue this guilty person who has insulted 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.”

Iranian officials have demanded that the United States apologize to Muslims for the film, saying it is only the latest in a series of Western insults aimed at Islam’s holy figures.

The head of Lebanon’s Iranian-allied Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, called for protests in Beirut this week and said the United States must be held accountable.

“All these developments are being orchestrated by U.S. intelligence,” he said.

The identity of those directly responsible for the film is still murky. Clips posted online since July have been attributed to a man named Sam Bacile, which two people connected with the film have said was probably an alias.

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, a Coptic Christian widely linked to the film in media reports, was questioned in California on Saturday by U.S. authorities investigating possible violations of his probation for a bank fraud conviction.

‘Racist and Islamophobic attack’ by alleged white Afrikaans-speakers

Mohammed Fayaz Kazi, died after brawl in Magaliesburg, allegedly with white Afrikanersby SAPA and Praag

The North West Premier Thandi Modise on Thursday condemned the killing of a Muslim man in Magaliesburg, reports the South African Press Association.

“There is no place in our diverse society for those who harbour racism and religious intolerance,” she said in a statement.

Modise called on police to ensure those responsible for the death of Muhammad Fayaaz Kazi, 27, were arrested.

The attack was both racist and Islamophobic, she said. She called on residents to help the police in their investigation and to exercise restraint.

Former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils said on Wednesday the “savage” attack on Kazi and another Muslim man carried “the stench of Islamophobia”.

“My heartfelt condolences and solidarity to the family of Fayaaz Kazi, whose brutal killers must be hunted down and brought to justice,” Kasrils said in a statement.

Kazi was beaten to death in Magaliesburg, allegedly by two people who insulted him because of his beard, according to a family friend.

Kazi, from Ventersdorp, and his father’s friend Anser Mahmood, were attacked at a Chicken Licken outlet in the town on Monday.

“Two white people… they called him [Osama] bin Laden in Afrikaans because of his beard…and then they called us kaffirs,” Mahmood told Sapa by telephone on Wednesday.

“Fayaaz, he understood Afrikaans, and was arguing with them.”

All four were thrown out of the fast food shop, and the fight continued outside.

“I asked why they were troubling him and he punched me,” Mahmood, 33, said.

“I don’t know what he hit me with. I was unconscious.”

Mahmood was mostly hit in the face, while Kazi was beaten over the head. Mahmood said he did not know what object was used to attack Kazi.

“Nobody helps us. They wanted me dead also, but I survived.”

North West police said a murder docket had been opened.

“After purchasing food from a fast food outlet an argument allegedly broke out between Kazi and two unknown Afrikaner males. It further alleged that the two suspects were mocking Kazi about his long beard,” said Brigadier Thulani Ngubane.

The two men fled the scene after the assault.

Ngubane said Mahmood refused to open a case and the two left for Ventersdorp.

“Upon arriving on Ventersdop, Kazi became weak and was transported to the Ventersdorp Hospital where he was treated and transferred to Potchefstroom Hospital after his condition became worse,” Ngubane said.

Kazi died in hospital at Potchefstroom. His funeral was held on Tuesday.

The murder case was registered at the Potchefstroom police station. It was expected to be transferred to the Magaliesburg police.

The Media Review Network, a Muslim advocacy group on human rights, called on Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa to ensure a speedy investigation.

Researcher Ibrahim Vawda said there was widespread anger across the Muslim community.

“We strongly urge all members of our community to exercise restraint and patience and to allow the normal process of the law to take its course.”

Bin Laden was the founder of al-Qaeda, which the US claimed was responsible for the September 11, 2001, suicide attacks on the country. US soldiers killed him in Pakistan on May 2, 2011.

In her comments, Netherlands-based blogger Adriana Stuijt wrote:

“While this is a horrific incident, I would ask why there  wasn’t a similar outrage when four Afrikaner dads, unarmed, were mowed down in Umbilo by two South African Muslim policemen who had taunted the Afrikaners about their ‘penis size’. That was just as much a hate crime, yet the SA news media have kept very silent about this. There was no ‘brawl’ until the Muslims had insulted the Afrikaners, who were in their usual pub watching a football game in Umbilo. Three of the Afrikaner men died instantly at the scene – Nick Janse van Rensburg, 57, Shawn Strydom, 33, and Rory Menzies, 40. Two others, Shawn and Bruce Edwards, were injured. Bruce Edwards later died in hospital. All were family men. It does not help to keep sweeping up emotions and polarising people like this.”