KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 16 people were killed in Nigeria in anti-American riots on Saturday and thousands of demonstrators joined peace marches in London and Berlin. (Read photo caption below)Nigerian authorities ordered police to shoot on sight and clamped a night curfew on Kano, the biggest city in the mainly Muslim north, after some of the most violent anti-American protests in Africa since U.S. air strikes on Afghanistan began.
Army tanks criss-crossed the streets to quell riots which followed a pattern of Muslim-Christian clashes that have killed thousands in oil-producing Nigeria over the past two years.
In London, Muslims and Christians marched side by side in a protest against the bombing of Afghanistan that attracted more than 20,000 people, according to police estimates.
Germany also saw its biggest protest so far against the air strikes.
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, who are sheltering the chief suspect in the attacks, Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, estimate that more than 300 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in the raids. There has been no independent confirmation.
Protest organizers said some 30,000 people turned out in Berlin, but police put the figure at about 14,000. Protesters came from some 140 different groups, ranging from far-left Marxist parties to the far-right neo-Nazi NPD party.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Demonstrators opposed to the U.S. led air strikes in Afghanistan gather in Trafalgar Square after a march through central London, October 13, 2001. In Nigeria, At least 16 people were killed in anti-American riots while thousands of demonstrators joined peace marches in London and Berlin. (Michael Crabtree/Reuters)