A fatwa, or legal Islamic ruling, appears to have been issued against Danish soldiers stationed in Iraq, the Danish defence ministry said on Tuesday.
"I can confirm that we've heard about the fatwa from a reliable source in Iraq ... so we believe it's true," Defence Minister Soeren Gade's spokesman Jacob Winther told AFP.
The report came amid rising Muslim anger over 12 cartoons published in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten last September depicting the Prophet Mohammed. The crisis is threatening Danish trade relations with the Muslim world.
Danish flags have been burnt, products have been boycotted and threats of violence have been issued against Scandinavians in Muslim countries in recent days.
Both Jyllands-Posten and a Norwegian Christian magazine that republished the drawings earlier this month have received death threats.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari summoned Denmark's ambassador Tuesday to hear Iraq's condemnation of the cartoons, including a portrayal of the prophet wearing a time-bomb shaped turban.
Islam considers any image of the prophet blasphemous.
Denmark has 530 soldiers posted in Iraq, mainly stationed in the south under British command.
Winther said Danish troops had been put on higher alert, but that the military did not yet know how worried to be.
"We don't know what kind of a fatwa it is, whether it's just a religious ruling of a death threat or what it is," he said, adding: "I don't think it's good."
Once Denmark has determined what the fatwa is about, the Scandinavian country will work to create a dialogue in Iraq, Winther said.
"We need to tell them about what we're doing in Iraq and in Denmark and what the case of the drawings is really about. I'm not sure if they're getting all the right information."
