BAMAKO, Mali (AP) --Resident Hama Cisse of Goundam town, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Timbuktu, said Saturday that members of the radical Islamic sect Ansar Dine were going from door to door in a bid to arrest the leaders of a protest against them.

He says the protest erupted Friday after a young Islamist militant whipped a woman carrying a baby for not wearing what he considered to be an adequate veil.

The baby fell and was injured.

Resident Ousmane Yattara said angry citizens then marched toward the radicals' base and vandalized the premises.

A spokesman for the al-Qaida-linked group, Sanda Abou Mohamed, dismissed the protests as a smear campaign and said the baby had not been injured.

AP-WF-07-14-12 1353GMT