Indonesian police tear-gassed a crowd protesting on Monday against the US attacks on Afghanistan as President Megawati Sukarnoputri toughened her own stance on the eight-day air raids.
Around 200 people from four radical Islamic groups had gathered outside parliament for a peaceful protest. But police fired tear gas, water cannon and blank warning shots when demonstrators refused an order to disperse.
Police attacked fleeing protesters as well about six news photographers, including one from AFP, witnesses said. They damaged several cameras and confiscated film.
Officers badly damaged a loudspeaker truck and at least three parked cars, smashing window glass and puncturing tyres. Ten people were arrested.
"Today is a public holiday and they are well aware that no demonstrations are allowed on a public holiday," said Jakarta police chief Inspector General Sofyan Jacoeb.
"They are trying to get inside the parliament complex and that is an act of anarchy," he told reporters. "We try to negotiate with them but it seems like they have closed their hearts."
Some 500 police later surrounded the Jakarta headquarters of the militant Front for the Defenders of Islam, one of the groups involved in the protest at parliament.
The front has threatened to attack embassies and other facilities and to "sweep" or search for foreigners and intimidate them into leaving Indonesia.
"We heard they want to carry out sweepings so we're here to find out what they want to do," said Colonel Nono Supriyono, head of the Jakarta police operational command.
"We're trying to make sure the front will not leave their headquarters," said city police spokesman Anton Bahrul Alam.
Front members, some carrying sticks, blocked the alley to their headquarters with a barbed-wire barricade.
There have been near-daily protests, mainly small-scale, since the US and British attacks on Afghanistan began, coupled with threats by hardliners against Americans and Britons.
Many protests have come from radicals. One banner outside parliament showed a picture of US President George W. Bush with a message reading "Wanted by the Muslim people", apparently a response to Bush's demand for Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden "dead or alive".
Washington accuses bin Laden of masterminding the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, which triggered the US-led strikes on Afghanistan, where bin Laden is believed to be located.
But the US attacks have stirred misgivings even among moderate Islamic groups in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
On Sunday night President Megawati for the first time directly criticised the US attacks.
"Violence should not always be responded to with violence," she said in a speech at a mosque.
"Terrorism deserves punishment," Megawati said, in apparent reference to the September 11 attacks.
But she added: "No individual, group or government has the right to try to catch terrorist perpetrators by attacking the territory of another country."
The president, under pressure from legislators, mainstream Muslim groups and her own vice president Hamzah Haz, went further than her government's previous position.
Last week Jakarta issued a statement expressing "deep concern" at the US military action but avoiding condemnation.
On Saturday Haz, leader of the largest Muslim party, urged the US to stop attacking Afghanistan "because otherwise more civilians will fall victims".
Haz also told his party Washington must present solid proof of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 strikes.
Bin Laden, the chief US suspect, is believed to be sheltered by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia -- Jakarta, (AFP)
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