Yemen rioters damage gas project over Koran offence
25 Mar 2007 19:59:55 GMT Source: Reuters
(Adds no casualties, background) ADEN, Yemen, March 25 (Reuters) - Hundreds of workers rioted in Yemen on Sunday over a French engineer's alleged defilement of Islam's holy book, damaging a gas export terminal project and setting fire to cars and a helicopter, officials said. Security officials and witnesses said around 400 workers were protesting against what they said was the desecration of the Koran at the site, a liquefied natural gas terminal under construction in Belhaf, southeastern Yemen. The project is being led by France's Total <TOTF.PA>. The official Saba news agency said a peaceful demonstration after a "dispute with one of the engineers" turned violent when protestors attacked some of the project's assets. The agency said a team that includes security and labour officials was investigating the incident. It said there were no casualties in the riots quelled by the project's security force. The Yemen LNG project, one of the main growth projects for the French energy giant, is due to start by the end of 2008 with the aim of producing 6.7 million metric tonnes a year. The security sources, who wished not to be named, said the Yemeni army had intervened to calm the violence and had evacuated the French engineer at the centre of the row. In 2006 angry Muslims set fire to the Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon and violent protests rocked cities from Morocco to Malaysia over Danish cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammad published in September 2005, which Muslims saw as sacrilegious and an attack on their beliefs.
