Caricature spurs more protests

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Thousands of Muslims rampaged Sunday in Beirut, setting fire to the Danish Embassy, burning Danish flags and lobbing stones at a Maronite Catholic church as violent protests over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad spread from neighboring Syria.\nTroops fired bullets into the air and used tear gas and water cannons to push the crowds back after a small group of rioters tried to break through the security barrier outside the embassy. Flames and smoke billowed from the building. Security officials said at least 30 people were injured.\nThe Danish Foreign Ministry urged Danes to leave Lebanon as soon as possible, while Danes and Norwegians heeded a similar call in Syria, where violent protests broke out Saturday.\n"It is a critical situation and it is very serious," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said Sunday on Danish public radio.\nProtesters also took to the streets by the thousands elsewhere in the Muslim world, a day after demonstrators in Syria charged security barriers outside the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and sent the buildings up in flames.\nThose attacks earned widespread condemnation from European nations and the United States, which accused the Syrian government of backing the protests.\n"Now it has become more than a case about the drawings: Now there are forces that want a confrontation between our cultures," Moeller said. "It is in no one's interest, neither them or us."\nSyria blamed Denmark for the protests, criticizing the Scandinavian nation for refusing to apologize for the caricatures of Islam's holiest figure.\n"(Denmark's) government was able to avoid reaching this point ... simply through an apology" as requested by Arab and Muslim diplomats, state-run daily Al-Thawra said in an editorial Sunday.\n"It is unjustifiable under any kind of personal freedoms to allow a person or a group to insult the beliefs of millions of Muslims," the paper said.\nAnger has broken out across the Muslim world over 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September and reprinted in European media and New Zealand in the past week.\nOne depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship when it came to Muslim issues.\nThe drawings have touched a raw nerve in part because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad for fear they could lead to idolatry.\nDenmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said he personally disapproves of the caricatures and any attacks on religion -- but insisted he cannot apologize on behalf of his country's independent press.\nIraqi Transport Minister Salam al-Maliki said his country has decided to cancel its contracts with Danish firms and reject any offers of reconstruction money from Copenhagen to protest the publication of the caricatures. The government had issued no official statement and the value of the transportation contracts was not available.\nIran also said it has recalled its ambassador to Denmark amid the controversy.\n"Insulting the prophet was unacceptable, resentful, and a sign of barbarism," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said, adding that Tehran planned to take further action.\nSyria, Saudi Arabia and Libya have also recalled their ambassadors to Copenhagen in condemnation of the caricatures.