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Angry protests spread

U.S. braces for more violence

BEIRUT — Protesters over a film made in the United States that denigrates the Prophet Muhammad continued today throughout the Mideast.

In Lebanon, Lebanese security officials say one person was killed and 25 wounded after clashes between police and protesters over the film.

The officials said an angry crowd set fire today to a KFC and an Arby’s restaurant. They then clashed with police.

The security officials said police opened fire, killing one of the attackers.

Several hundred Sudanese protesters have stormed the German Embassy in the capital Khartoum, burning a car parked behind its gates and trash cans.

Police fired tear gas, pushing the protesters outside the embassy’s gates. There appeared to be no immediate damage to the embassy’s staff or building.

Most protesters dispersed, but a group marched to protest at the nearby British Embassy.

In India, thousands of angry Kashmiri Muslims protested today against the anti-Islam film, burning U.S. flags and calling President Barack Obama a “terrorist,” while the top government cleric here reportedly demanded Americans leave the volatile Indian-controlled region.

At least 15,000 people took part in more than two dozen protests across Kashmir, chanting “Down with America” and “Down with Israel” in some of the largest anti-American demonstrations against the film in Asia.

In Bangladesh, about 5,000 hard-line Muslims marched through the streets of the capital, Dhaka, after Friday prayers, burning U.S. and Israeli flags and calling for the arrest and death of the filmmaker. Police prevented them from marching toward the U.S. Embassy, which was several miles away.

The low-budget film “Innocence of Muslims” produced by a filmmaker in the United States ridicules Islam and depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a madman.

American and Middle Eastern leaders have denounced the film and condemned acts of violence.

In Libya, the American ambassador and three other staff members were killed this weekn when the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was attacked.

The Obama administration continues to brace for more eruption of violent demonstrations in parts of the Muslim world after today’s weekly prayers — traditionally a time of protest in the Middle East and North Africa.

The U.S. put all of its diplomatic missions overseas on high alert, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered an explicit denunciation of the video as the administration sought to pre-empt further turmoil at its embassies and consulates.

“The United States government had absolutely nothing to do with this video,” she said before a meeting with the foreign minister of Morocco at the State Department. “We absolutely reject its content and message.”

“To us, to me personally, this video is disgusting and reprehensible,” Clinton said. “It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose: to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage.”

U.S. officials said they suspect that the attack at the Benghazi consulate, which had also been the target of an unsuccessful attack in June, may have been only tangentially related to the film.

They also stressed there had been no advance warning or intelligence to suggest a threat in Libya that would warrant boosting security, even on the 11th anniversary of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“As we did with all of our missions overseas, in advance of the September 11 anniversary and as we do every year, we did evaluate the threat stream and we determined that the security at Benghazi was appropriate for what we knew,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

President Barack Obama also vowed that the perpetrators would be punished.

“I want people around the world to hear me,” he said. “To all those who would do us harm: No act of terror will go unpunished. I will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America.”

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