Western missions alert; anti-film fury continues

DUBAI: Western embassies across the Muslim world remained on high alert yesterday and the US urged vigilance after days of anti-American violence provoked by an anti-Islam video.
Germany followed the US lead and withdrew some staff from its embassy in Sudan, which was stormed on Friday.
Washington ordered nonessential staff and family members to leave its embassy there on Saturday.
Nonessential US personnel have also been withdrawn from Tunisia, and Washington urged US citizens to leave the capital Tunis after the embassy there was targeted on Friday.
In the Pakistani city of Lahore, about 5,000 people gathered for a protest, chanting anti-US slogans, while in Karachi, police blocked off roads to the US consulate with shipping containers.
In Hyderabad, one person was killed and one wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire at a protest against the film and in the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, about 300 protesters burned an effigy of US President Barack Obama.
At least eight people were injured after protesters denouncing the film clashed with police outside the US Consulate in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi.
Police fired bullets in the air and used tear gas and water canons to disperse some 1,000 people at a rally organized by Majlis-e-Wahadatul Muslimeen, a Shiite group. At one stage protesters broke through security cordons and got close to the heavily guarded US Consulate, pelting stones at the building.
Belgian police said yesterday they have detained 230 people in the northern city of Antwerp after clashes at a demonstration against the film.
The protesters shouted anti-US slogans, and some also set fire to the US flag, according to television footage of Saturday’s unauthorized demonstration in an area that has a large Muslim population. It degenerated into clashes with police after officers blocked the protesters from moving to a main thoroughfare. A leader of the group Sharia4Belgium was among those detained.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the United States Embassy in London yesterday to protest the film. Around 300 men and women joined in the protest, waving placards and chanting slogans outside the embassy building in central London.
Demonstrators chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) and waved placards reading “USA dead” at the demonstration against the film.
Protestors burned a US flag outside the US Embassy in Turkey’s capital Ankara yesterday in protest against the film, while several dozen others chanted slogans against the US policy in Syria.
The protesters from two separate groups carried banners including one which read “Murderer America! Get out of Turkey!”
Riot police backed by water cannon blocked the road outside the embassy, keeping the protesters around 100 metres from its walls, and the group dispersed in less than an hour.
The filmmaker linked to the movie said following an interview with law enforcement officials that would not return to his home, possibly heading into hiding, authorities said.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, was interviewed by federal probation officers for about half an hour at the station shortly after 12 a.m. in his hometown of Cerritos, California, said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department.
After that, deputies dropped Nakoula off at an undisclosed location.
“He is gone. We don’t know where he went,” Whitmore said. “He said he is not going back to his home.”
Federal officials are investigating whether Nakoula, who has been convicted of financial crimes, has violated the terms of his five-year probation. If so, a judge could send him back to prison.
Whitmore said Nakoula was not handcuffed and the heavy apparel was his idea.