Outrage over a crudely produce anti-Muslim video has spread to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia.
Western embassies were on "high alert," as a new wave of protests erupted Monday across the Middle East, according to the Associated Press.
Thousands of people spilled into the streets of the Afghan capital of Kabul, setting fire to property and clashing with police. In Pakistan, rioters set fire to a press club and government building while decrying the film. In the Indonesian city of Jakarta, protesters threw rocks and firebombs outside the U.S. embassy.
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The video blamed for the start of the violence, "Innocence of Muslims," was shot on a shoestring budget in California's Inland Empire by a convicted felon who served time for manufacturing methamphetamine. The film's portrayal of Muhammad as a false prophet, a homosexual and a pedophile has roiled protestors from Egypt to India and has been linked with the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya. Despite its low-grade production values, a YouTube trailer has set off some of the most virulent anti-Western protests across the Muslim world since the publication of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" in 1988.
In an effort to curb the violence, YouTube is barring access to the video in various countries throughout the Middle East.