Rioting outside EU summit

A protester hurls a metal barrier

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Belgian police used water cannon and teargas to disperse masked protesters wielding cobblestones and metal staves outside the EU Laeken summit.

It was the first serious such violence since the September 11 attacks on the United States and recalled similar clashes at an EU summit in Sweden last June and at the G8 meeting in Genoa in July.

Witnesses blamed extreme elements among anti-globalisation protesters for the rioting.

They told Reuters that the rioters, some dressed in black and wearing heavy boots, smashed the windows of banks in Place Bockstael, a square about three kilometres from the Laeken royal palace where the two-day EU summit was being held.

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They also hurled a metal barrier through the windows of a police station, wrecked several parked cars and daubed anti-capitalist slogans on boarded-up shop windows.

Police in riot gear surrounded a hard core of several hundred demonstrators and systematically searched people wanting to leave the area, confiscating sticks and stones.

They turned on two water cannon in the Avenue du Port after protesters built fires on the street, and used loudhailers to urge the rioters to disperse.

Police said about 40 people were arrested, among them a few of that they called "well-known troublemakers."

Brussels mayor Freddy Thielemens said police tactics had limited the violence and potential damage to property.

"We decided to work in the spirit of peace-keepers. We arrested people who came to break things, but didn't intervene when we thought innocent people would be hurt," he told a news conference.

The riots erupted after up to 12,000 demonstrators, far fewer than originally expected, had marched peacefully through Brussels calling for an end to war and to economic inequalities.

At that stage the mood was carnival-style. Only a handful wore hoods and masks.

They were a mixed bag of anti-globalisation activists, anarchists and environmentalists, Reuters reported, brandishing banners saying "Not in my name: stop the war!" and "Stop the massacre, free Palestine!"

Many of the protesters chanted anti-war slogans.

"Good for the rich, bad for the poor. We don't want your capitalist war," one group chanted in English.

Anti-globalisation protesters have increasingly pushed the anti-war theme since the U.S. launched a war in Afghanistan following the September 11 suicide jet attacks.

"We see how this capitalist system creates endless poverty and we believe that's the fundamental reason behind the war," Peter Lahti of the Swedish committee for the Workers' International told Reuters.

Until the violence flared, police had kept a low profile, as during a similar, much bigger demonstration on Thursday by some 80,000 trade unionists which passed quietly.

Police said they were "cautious" about two marches concluding the Laeken summit, scheduled for Saturday and organised by anarchists and peace protesters.