Pakistan: 150 arrested for burning Christian homes

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Police have arrested around 150 people accused of burning dozens of Christian houses in eastern Pakistanafter a non-Muslim was accused of making offensive comments about Islam's Prophet Muhammad, police said Sunday as Christians rallied against the destruction.

The Christian demonstrators blocked a main highway in Lahore and police fired tear gas shells to disperse the protesters who demanded assistance from the government.

Government spokesman Pervaiz Rasheed promised the government would help hem rebuild their houses, but the Christians expressed dissatisfaction with the way the government was handling the incident.

"I have been robbed of all of my life's savings," Yousuf Masih said, standing close to his burned house. He said the government's announcement that it would give 200,000 rupees ($2,000) compensation to each family was a joke.

The incident began on Friday after a Muslim accused a Christian man of blasphemy — an offense that in Pakistan is punished by life in prison or death. On Saturday, a mob of angry Muslims rampaged through the Christian neighborhood, burning about 170 houses.

The Christian man is in police custody pending an investigation into the allegations.

Those who rioted are being investigated for alleged arson, robbery, theft, and terrorism, said police officer Abdur Rehman. The Pakistani police usually arrest rioters to tamp down public anger, but those accused are rarely convicted.

The law is often misused to settle personal scores and rivalries.

Akram Gill, a local bishop in the Lahore Christian community, said the incident had more to do with personal enmity between two men — one Christian and one Muslim — than blasphemy. He said the men got into a brawl after drinking late one night, and in the morning the Muslim man made up the blasphemy story as payback.

Such accusations of blasphemy in Pakistan can prompt huge crowds to take the law into their own hands. Once an accusation is made it's difficult to get it reversed, partly because law enforcement officials and politicians do not want to be seen as being soft on blasphemers.

According to Human Rights Watch, there are at least 16 people on death row for blasphemy and another 20 are serving life sentences.

Last year, there was a rare reversal of a blasphemy case. A teenage Christian girl with suspected mental disabilities was accused of burning pages of the Quran. But she was later released after a huge domestic and international outcry about her treatment. A local cleric where she lived was arrested and accused of planting the pages in her bag to incriminate her, a rare example of the accuser facing legal consequences. However, he was later freed on bail.

Also on Sunday, a suspected U.S. missile strike killed a foreign militant who was riding on horseback in Datta Khel in North Waziristan, according to three Pakistani intelligence officials who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

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Christians, police clash in Pakistan

Pakistani men, part of an angry mob, throw bricks at a Christian house after setting it on fire, in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, March 9, 2013. A mob of hundreds of people in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore attacked a Christian neighborhood Saturday and set fire to homes after hearing accusations that a Christian man had committed blasphemy against Islam's prophet, said a police officer. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Hundreds of Christians protesting the burning of their homes by a Muslim mob over alleged blasphemous remarks made against the Islam's Prophet Muhammad clashed with police on Sunday in eastern and southern Pakistan.

Around 150 people have been arrested for setting dozens of Christian houses on fire in the eastern city of Lahore after a non-Muslim was accused of making offensive comments about the prophet, police said.

Christians across the country rallied against the incident, but the main demonstrations were in Lahore, the southern port city of Karachi, the capital, Islamabad, and the adjoining city of Rawalpindi.

The Christian demonstrators blocked a main highway in Lahore and police fired tear gas shells to disperse the protesters who demanded assistance from the government, said police official Malik Awais. He said the protesters damaged several vehicles, uprooted a fence along the road and burned an electricity generator.

Seven policemen were injured when the protesters pelted them with stones, he said. He said the police, who used tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd, detained six of the protesters.

Government spokesman Pervaiz Rasheed promised the government would help hem rebuild their houses, but the Christians expressed dissatisfaction with the way the government was handling the incident.

"I have been robbed of all of my life's savings," Yousuf Masih said, standing close to his burned house. He said the government's announcement that it would give 200,000 rupees ($2,000) compensation to each family was a joke.

Awais, the police officer said, the protesters demanded the government raise the compensation amount from 200,000 rupees ($2,000) to 1 million rupees ($10,000).

In Karachi, more than 1,000 protesters blocked a road in a main market and damaged about 25 vehicles, said police officer Ali Raza. He said some of the protesters also attacked 10 shops and looted valuables and cash. He said the police beat back the protesters and fired tear gas shells to disperse them. At least two protesters were taken into custody, he said.

The protests are a response to an incident that began on Friday after a Muslim accused a Christian man of blasphemy — an offense that in Pakistan is punished by life in prison or death. On Saturday, a mob of angry Muslims rampaged through the Christian neighborhood in Lahore, burning about 170 houses.

The Christian man is in police custody pending an investigation into the allegations. Those who rioted are being investigated for alleged arson, robbery, theft, and terrorism, said police officer Abdur Rehman.

The Pakistani police usually arrest rioters to tamp down public anger, but those accused are rarely convicted and the law is often misused to settle personal disputes and rivalries.

Akram Gill, a local bishop in the Lahore Christian community, said the incident had more to do with personal enmity between two men — one Christian and one Muslim — than blasphemy. He said the men got into a brawl after drinking late one night, and in the morning the Muslim man made up the blasphemy story as payback.

Such accusations of blasphemy in the past have prompted huge crowds to take the law into their own hands. Once an accusation is made it's difficult to get it reversed, partly because law enforcement officials and politicians do not want to be seen as being soft on blasphemers.

According to Human Rights Watch, there are at least 16 people on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy and another 20 are serving life sentences.

Last year, there was a rare reversal of a blasphemy case. A teenage Christian girl with suspected mental disabilities was accused of burning pages of the Quran. But she was later released after a huge domestic and international outcry about her treatment. A local cleric where she lived was arrested and accused of planting the pages in her bag to incriminate her, a rare example of the accuser facing legal consequences. However, he was later freed on bail.

Also on Sunday, a suspected U.S. missile strike killed a foreign militant who was riding on horseback in Datta Khel in North Waziristan, according to three Pakistani intelligence officials who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

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Associated Press Writer Rasool Dawar in Peshawar and Adil Jawad in Karachi, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

UK military: Planes in Nigeria for Mali operation

A boy pushes a cart with garbage past Muslim women on a street in Kano, Nigeria, Sunday, March. 10, 2013. The United Kingdom's military says its warplanes recently spotted in Nigeria's capital city were there to move soldiers to aid the French intervention in Mali, not to rescue kidnapped foreign hostages. The Ministry of Defense said Sunday that the planes had ferried Nigerian troops and equipment to Bamako, Mali. An Islamic extremist group in Nigeria called Ansaru partially blamed the presence of those planes as an excuse for claiming Saturday that it killed seven foreign hostages it had taken. ( AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

People read local newspapers with the headline 'We've killed 7 foreign hostages' on a street in Kano, Nigeria, Sunday, March. 10, 2013. The United Kingdom's military says its warplanes recently spotted in Nigeria's capital city were there to move soldiers to aid the French intervention in Mali, not to rescue kidnapped foreign hostages. The Ministry of Defense said Sunday that the planes had ferried Nigerian troops and equipment to Bamako, Mali. An Islamic extremist group in Nigeria called Ansaru partially blamed the presence of those planes as an excuse for claiming Saturday that it killed seven foreign hostages it had taken. ( AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

KANO, Nigeria (AP) — Britain's military said Sunday its warplanes recently spotted in Nigeria's capital were there to move soldiers to aid the French intervention in Mali — not to rescue foreign hostages kidnapped by a radical Islamic extremist group.

The extremist group called Ansaru partially blamed the presence of those planes as an excuse for killing seven foreign hostages, including British, Greek, Italian and Lebanese citizens. The Islamic radicals claimed on Saturday that they had killed the seven hostages. While Nigerian authorities have yet to comment publicly about Ansaru's claim, it comes as the nation's security forces remain unable to stop the guerrilla campaign of bombings, shootings and kidnappings across the country's north.

Ansaru said it killed the hostages in part due to local Nigerian journalists reporting on the arrival of British military aircraft to Bauchi, the northern state where the abductions occurred. However, the online statement from Ansaru said the airplanes were spotted at the international airport in Abuja, the nation's capital.

The British Ministry of Defense said Sunday that the planes it flew to Abuja ferried Nigerian troops and equipment to Bamako, Mali. Nigerian soldiers have been sent to Mali to help French forces and Malian troops battle Islamic extremists there. The British military said it also transported Ghanaian soldiers to Mali the same way.

The British ministry declined to offer any other comment regarding Nigerian extremist group's claims that it killed the seven hostage killings. Ansaru had said it believed the planes were part of a Nigerian and British rescue mission for the abducted hostages.

The U.K. has offered military support in the past in Nigeria to free hostages. In March 2012, its special forces backed a failed Nigerian military raid to free Christopher McManus, who had been abducted months earlier with Italian Franco Lamolinara from a home in Kebbi state. Both hostages were killed in that rescue attempt.

In its statement Saturday, Ansaru also blamed the killings on a pledge by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to do "everything possible" to free the hostages.

Ansaru previously issued a short statement saying its fighters kidnapped the foreigners Feb. 16 from a construction company's camp at Jama'are, a town about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Bauchi, the capital of Bauchi state. In the attack gunmen first assaulted a local prison and burned police trucks, authorities said. Then the attackers blew up a back fence at the construction company's compound and took over, killing a guard in the process, witnesses and police said.

The gunmen appeared to be organized and knew who they wanted to target, leaving the Nigerian household staff at the residence unharmed, while quickly abducting the foreigners, a witness said. Local officials in Nigeria initially identified one of the hostages as a Filipino, something the Philippines government later denied.

In January 2013, Ansaru declared itself a splinter group independent from Boko Haram, the north's main Islamic terrorist group, analysts say. Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege," has launched a guerrilla campaign of bombings and shootings across Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. Boko Haram is blamed for at least 792 killings last year alone, according to an Associated Press count. Boko Haram claims to be currently holding hostage a family of seven French tourists who were abducted from neighboring Cameroon in late February.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

Egypt's interior minister won't allow 'militias'

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's interior minister on Sunday declared he would not allow vigilantes or militias to take over police duties, while admitting his police force has been strained by daily protests, clashes and criticism.

Minister Mohammed Ibrahim was speaking a day after protestersrampaged through Cairo, furious over the acquittal of seven of nine police officers in a trial over soccer violence that left 74 people dead last year. Some 21 civilians received death sentences in the highly charged trial.

Protesters torched a police club and the soccer federation headquarters Saturday. Hundreds of rioters battled police along the Nile river boulevard in an area packed with hotels and diplomatic missions. Two people were killed. The clashes along the river continued Sunday.

There were also limited protests in Port Said, the Suez Canal city where the soccer stadium riot erupted in February 2012. The city was the scene of bloody clashes with police in the past week. They stopped this weekend after police evacuated their headquarters and the military took over.

The unrest coincides with an unprecedented wave of strikes by police over demands for better working conditions, as well as anger over alleged attempts by President Mohammed Morsi and hisMuslim Brotherhood to take control of the police force.

Ibrahim acknowledged that his force is under strain, but he insisted he will not allow vigilante groups to take over the duties of the force.

"From the minister to the youngest recruit in the force, we will not accept to have militias in Egypt," Ibrahim said. "That will be only when we are totally dead, finished."

His declaration followed a statement by a hard-line Islamist group that its members would take up policing duties in the southern province of Assiut because of strikes by local security forces. Lawmakers have raised the possibility of legalizing private security companies, granting them the right to arrest and detain.

"There are groups of policemen on strike. I understand them. They are protesting the pressure they are under, the attacks from the media," the minister said. "They work in hard conditions and exert everything they can and are not met with appreciation or thanks."

Egypt's police and internal security forces are widely hated seen as a legacy of the rule of oustedPresident Hosni Mubarak, when they were notorious for abuses, torture and crackdowns on political opponents, including the Brotherhood.

Ibrahim said the strike is minor and is not affecting the capabilities of the force. Instead, dragging the police into the political dispute between the opposition and the ruling Islamists is exhausting the force, he said.

"I only ask all (political) forces to leave the police out of the political equation and the conflict that is taking place," Ibrahim said.

He said he is talking with the striking policemen, who, he said are demanding better armament.

He dismissed charges that the Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood is dictating his ministry's policies.

"There is no interference by anyone in the work of the ministry. Rest assured," he told reporters.

He said "infiltrators" among the protesters target police with live ammunition, birdshot and firebombs, to draw the force into using violence.

In the country's Islamist-led Shura Council, the upper house of the legislature, members criticized the striking police, accusing them of dereliction of duty and allowing chaos to spread. One called for banning strikes by police, while another accused former regime officials of conspiring to undermine Morsi's rule and hold on power.

"We are facing a very tight conspiracy that aims to destroy any legitimacy," said Hassan Youssef Abdel-Ghaffour of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.

Egypt's new constitution granted the Shura council temporary power to legislate following a court order disbanding the more powerful lower house last year.

Since late January, the country has been hit by relentless street protests, mainly directed against Morsi and the Brotherhood. The near-daily demonstrations have turned into clashes with police, and about 80 protesters have been killed since then.

The political turmoil is deepened by a battered economy, as the government struggles with unemployment, poverty and dangerously shrinking foreign currency reserves. On Sunday, drivers of vans used for public transportation around Cairo went on strike because of rising prices of diesel fuel, briefly blocking main roads and causing huge traffic jams.

Italy says 7 foreign hostages killed in Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (AP) — European diplomats said Sunday that seven foreign hostages kidnapped in northern Nigeria had been killed as claimed by Islamic extremists, the worst such foreign abduction violence to hit this turbulent West African nation in decades.

Both Britain and Italy said all seven of those taken from northern Bauchi state on Feb. 16 were killed by the group known as Ansaru. Greece also confirmed one of its citizens was killed, while Lebanese authorities did not immediately comment.

"It's an atrocious act of terrorism, against which the Italian government expresses its firmest condemnation, and which has no explanation, if not that of barbarous and blind violence," a statement from Italy's foreign ministry read. Italy also flatly denied a claim by Ansaru that the hostages were killed before or during a military operation by Nigerian and British forces, saying there was "no military intervention aimed at freeing the hostages."

Italian Premier Mario Monti identified the slain Italian hostage as Silvano Trevisan and promised the Rome government will use "every effort" to stop the killers. British Foreign Secretary William Hague called the killings "an act of cold-blooded murder."

A statement from Greece's foreign ministry said authorities had already informed the hostage's family.

"We note that the terrorists never communicated or formulated demands to release the hostages," the statement read, which also denied any military raid took place.

Ansaru previously issued a short statement saying its fighters kidnapped the foreigners Feb. 16 from a construction company's camp at Jama'are, a town about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Bauchi, the capital of Bauchi state. In the attack gunmen first assaulted a local prison and burned police trucks, authorities said. Then the attackers blew up a back fence at the construction company's compound and took over, killing a guard in the process, witnesses and police said.

Those kidnapped included four Lebanese citizens and one citizen apiece from Britain, Greece and Italy.

The gunmen appeared to be organized and knew who they wanted to target, leaving the Nigerian household staff at the residence unharmed, while quickly abducting the foreigners, a witness said. Local officials in Nigeria initially identified one of the hostages as a Filipino, something the Philippines government later denied.

In an online statement Saturday claiming the killings, Ansaru said it killed the hostages in part due to local Nigerian journalists reporting on the arrival of British military aircraft to Bauchi, the northern state where the abductions occurred. However, the online statement from Ansaru cited local news articles that instead said the airplanes were spotted at the international airport in Abuja, the nation's capital.

The British Ministry of Defense said Sunday that the planes it flew to Abuja ferried Nigerian troops and equipment to Bamako, Mali. Nigerian soldiers have been sent to Mali to help French forces and Malian troops battle Islamic extremists there. The British military said it also transported Ghanaian soldiers to Mali the same way.

The British ministry declined to comment further. Ansaru had said it believed the planes were part of a Nigerian and British rescue mission for the abducted hostages.

The U.K. has offered military support in the past in Nigeria to free hostages. In March 2012, its special forces backed a failed Nigerian military raid to free Christopher McManus, who had been abducted months earlier with Italian Franco Lamolinara from a home in Kebbi state. Both hostages were killed in that rescue attempt.

"I am grateful to the Nigerian Government for their unstinting help and cooperation," Hague said in his statement, without addressing the claim that the U.K. had launched a rescue effort.

In its statement Saturday, Ansaru also blamed the killings on a pledge by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to do "everything possible" to free the hostages. Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati did not respond to requests for comment.

While Nigerian authorities have yet to comment publicly about Ansaru's claim, it comes as the nation's security forces remain unable to stop the guerrilla campaign of bombings, shootings and kidnappings across the country's north.

In January 2012, Ansaru declared itself a splinter group independent from Boko Haram, the north's main Islamic terrorist group, analysts say. Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege," has launched a guerrilla campaign of bombings and shootings across Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. Boko Haram is blamed for at least 792 killings last year alone, according to an Associated Press count. An online video also purportedly claims that Boko Haram is currently holding hostage a family of seven French tourists who were abducted from neighboring Cameroon in late February.

The killings appear to be the worst in decades targeting foreigners working in Nigeria, an oil-rich nation that's a major crude supplier to the United States. Most kidnappings in the country's southern oil delta see foreigners released after companies pay ransoms. The latest kidnappings in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north, however, have seen the hostages killed either by their captors or in military raids to free them, suggesting a new level of danger for expatriate workers there.

The worst violence targeting foreign workers previously in the country's history came during its 1960s civil war. In May 1969, forces with the breakaway Republic of Biafra raided a Nigerian oil field, killing 10 Italian oil workers and a Jordanian. Eighteen other foreign workers taken by Biafran soldiers faced the death penalty, but later were pardoned and released.

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Associated Press writers Frances D'Emilio in Rome, Demetris Nellas in Athens, Greece, and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

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