Danish Embassy In Beirut Torched

Muslims Continue To Protest Violently Over Cartoons

(CBS/AP)  Muslim rage over caricatures of the prophet Muhammad grew increasingly violent Sunday as thousands of rampaging protesters — undaunted by tear gas and water cannons — torched the Danish mission and ransacked a Christian neighborhood. At least one person reportedly died and about 200 were detained, officials said.

Muslim clerics denounced the violence, with some wading into the mobs trying to stop them. Copenhagen ordered Danes to leave the country or stay indoors in the second day of attacks on its diplomatic outposts in the Middle East.

In Beirut, a day after violent protests in neighboring Syria, the thousands-strong crowd broke through a cordon of troops and police that had encircled the embassy. Security forces fired tear gas and loosed their weapons into the air to stop the onslaught.

The protesters, armed with stones and sticks, seized fire engines, overturned police vehicles and garbage containers for use as barricades, damaged cars and threw stones at a Maronite Catholic church in the wealthy Ashrafieh area — a Christian neighborhood where the Danish Embassy is located.

Muslim anger in Europe seems to be about more than just the drawings, reports CBS News correspondent David Hawkins.

"I believe that the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, the propaganda in the media, are all part of the equation," Anjem Choudhary, a Muslim protest leader told Hawkins.

Flames and smoke billowed from the 10-story building, which also houses the Austrian Embassy and the residence of Slovakia's consul.

Protesters waved green and black Islamic flags from the broken windows of the building and tossed papers and filing cabinets outside.

Witnesses said one protester, apparently overcome by smoke, jumped from a window of the embassy and was rushed unconscious to hospital. Security officials said he died.

Thirty people were injured, half of them members of the security forces, officials said, making it the most violent in a string of demonstrations across the Muslim world. All the injuries were from beatings and stones.

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said before meeting with top Islamic leaders that about 200 people were detained, and police said they included 76 Syrians, 35 Palestinians and 38 Lebanese.

The first apparent victim of the political fallout from the violence was Interior Minister Hassan Sabei, who submitted his resignation during an emergency Cabinet meeting chaired by President Emile Lahoud. It was not immediately clear if the resignation was accepted.

Sabei said authorities had done their best to prevent what was supposed to be a peaceful protest from turning violent.

"Things got out of hand when elements that had infiltrated into the ranks of the demonstrators broke through security shields," he said. "The one remaining option was an order to shoot, but I was not prepared to order the troops to shoot Lebanese citizens."

Sabei, like other Lebanese politicians and Grand Mufti Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, spiritual leader of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims, suggested Islamic radicals had fanned the anger of the crowds.

Kabbani said outsiders among the protesters were trying to "harm the stability of Lebanon" and "distort the image of Islam."