Afghans Protest Cartoons, Film

Thousands of Afghan protesters burned Dutch and Danish flags yesterday in a protest against a Danish cartoon and a Dutch film said to insult Islam. They called for the Dutch and Danish embassies to be closed and for their troops serving with NATO in the country to be expelled, Reuters reports. The 2005 cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb in his turban was recently reprinted in Dutch newspapers after the cartoonist received death threats.

The film by Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders has not been screened, but Wilders days it criticizes the Koran for inciting violence. Riot police were stationed outside the Danish embassy and at intersections throughout Kabul as the demonstration grew after Friday prayers. Clerics chanted, "Death to Denmark. Death to the Netherlands. Death to America. Death to Jews." (More Danish Mohammed cartoons stories.)