KABUL, Afghanistan -- Gunfire broke out Saturday at a demonstration in Kabul where several hundred people had gathered to protest the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, witnesses said.
Details were murky, but witnesses said that at least eight people were wounded in a confrontation with the police and that some were believed to have died. Police officials, however, later said that they were not aware of any deaths, adding that one officer also was wounded. The protest took place on Jalalabad Road in the city's east.
The most violent clash occurred at an Afghan customs office, witnesses said.
"They first attacked the customs office and a garage here," said Mohammad Yousuf, 18, a mechanic who works nearby, referring to the demonstrators. Then the police opened fire on the protesters, Yousuf said.
Farid Afzeli, chief of the Kabul police department's criminal investigations division, said several hundred demonstrators gathered in eastern Kabul on Saturday afternoon to protest the newspaper's ongoing practice of running satirical caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
Afzeli said the protest started peacefully, but said a group of armed infiltrators began blocking roads, throwing rocks and shooting at police officers on the scene. Police responded by calling in reinforcements and firing in the air to disperse the crowd, he said.
At one point, the crowd attempted to attack several government buildings and a local bank, but they were blocked by police. Afzeli said eight demonstrators were injured and one police officer was wounded by gunfire.
No arrests were made and the incident is under investigation, Afzeli said.
A Kabul police spokesman, Hashmatullah Stanikzai, said that some of the protesters were armed with guns and firing at random.
The demonstrators' grievances were directed at the Afghan authorities as well as the French newspaper, with chants of both "death to Charlie Hebdo" and "death to the government" heard. Witnesses reported seeing several white Taliban flags among the protesters.
By early afternoon, the police had cleared the area and closed a nearby bazaar where the protesters had gathered at one point.
Islamist gunmen attacked Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices Jan. 7, killing 12 people. The cover of the newspaper's next issue featured a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad weeping and holding a sign that read "I am Charlie," the slogan that became a popular expression of solidarity following the attack.
In Afghanistan as in many other Muslim countries, that image, like earlier depictions of Muhammad published by Charlie Hebdo, was seen as a provocation. President Ashraf Ghani called the cover a "great insult" to Islam and an "utterly irresponsible act."
But until Saturday there had been little unrest in Kabul over the matter, although some restrained protests were held. The imam at one mosque, for example, devoted a recent Friday sermon to speaking about Charlie Hebdo and Western notions of freedom of expression without urging Muslims to demonstrate.
Meanwhile, French authorities filed preliminary charges on Saturday against five men allegedly implicated in a jihadist recruiting network based in a small southern town from where about 20 youths went to fight in Syria and Iraq.
Preliminary charges of criminal association involving a plot to carry out terrorist acts were filed against the men, aged 26 to 44, several of whom were from the town of Lunel, between Nimes and Montpellier, Paris prosecutor's office spokesman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said. The nature of the plot in question wasn't immediately clear. The men were detained last week in raids.
Authorities say six people from the town of Lunel have been killed in Iraq and Syria in recent months, out of around 20 thought to have departed for jihad. Lunel has a population of about 26,000, making the concentration of jihadists particularly high.
"One more network was broken up today," Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Tuesday after the raids.
France has put about 3,000 people under surveillance since the January attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery store that left 17 people dead, a figure that includes two police officers. The three attackers were killed.
Authorities have given no indication of a connection between the suspects just charged and the Paris attacks. Preliminary charges allow for further investigation after which the suspects are either definitively charged or freed from all suspicion.
Information for this article was contributed by Joseph Goldstein and Jawad Sukhanyar of The New York Times and by staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 02/01/2015