PARIS (Reuters) - World leaders called for calm on Monday after weekend attacks in which Danish diplomatic missions were set ablaze and Lebanon and Syria promised inquiries into how protests about cartoons of the Prophet turned violent.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed alarm about the riots and urged restraint but oil giant Iran, which is reviewing trade ties with countries that published the cartoons, vowed to respond to "an anti-Islamic and Islamophobic current".
Denmark is the focus of Muslim rage because the images, one showing the Prophet Mohammad with a turban resembling a bomb, first appeared in a Danish daily and the ensuing furore has become a clash between press freedom and religious respect.
"I call on all Arab countries to talk with moderation about what is happening," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said, in a view echoed by other leaders after the riots in Beirut and Damascus. "Let's keep it calm."
Ukraine on Monday became the latest country where newspapers have published the cartoons, joining Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Poland and the United States.
There were fresh protests about the cartoons outside the European Union offices in Gaza on Monday.
Waving fists, protesters chanted: "Down with Denmark. Down with Norway. With our blood we will redeem our Prophet." The presidential guard fired in the air to disperse the demonstrators and anti-riot police secured the area.
For Muslims, depicting the Prophet Mohammad is prohibited by Islam and protests have raged from Lahore to Gaza, but moderate Muslim groups have expressed their fears about radicals and militants hijacking the affair.
Speaking from Beirut, Omar Bakri Mohammad, leader of the Islamist group al Muhajiroon which is banned in Britain, called for the execution of those involved with the cartoons.
"In Islam, God said, and the messenger Mohammad said, whoever insults a prophet, he must be punished and executed," he told BBC radio by telephone.
"With growing concern, we are witnessing the escalation in disturbing tensions provoked by the publication, in European newspapers, of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that Muslims consider deeply offensive," the prime ministers of Turkey and Spain said in the International Herald Tribune.
"We shall all be the losers if we fail to immediately defuse this situation, which can only leave a trail of mistrust and misunderstanding between both sides in its wake," Tayyip Erdogan and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in the joint article.
SECURITY QUESTIONS
Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan al-Sabaa resigned after police used tear gas and water cannon in Beirut to disperse thousands of protesters, some of whom ransacked and burnt the Danish consulate and hurled rocks at police.
One protester, among those who set the consulate alight, was encircled by flames and died after jumping from the third floor.
Syrians set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus on Saturday. They damaged the Swedish embassy and tried to storm the French mission but were held off by riot police.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the few U.S. newspapers to publish a cartoon of the Prophet, defended the action on Sunday by saying it was just doing its job.
Editor Amanda Bennett said "when a use of religious imagery that many find offensive becomes a major news story, we believe it is important for readers to be able to judge the content of the image for themselves".
The Danish Foreign Ministry urged Danes on Sunday to leave Lebanon and advised its citizens not to travel there.
Up to 4,000 people marched in Brussels on Sunday to protest against the cartoons, police said. In Paris, about 1,000 people protested peacefully against the caricatures, police said.
In New York, hundreds of Muslims and supporters gathered for a rally at the Danish mission to the United Nations, seeking an apology from Denmark.
Demonstrators held signs with slogans such as: "Hate speech is not free speech", "Denmark must apologise" and "Europe must show civility".
Syria stepped up security at Western embassies on Sunday after being criticised for failing to protect the Danish and Norwegian missions. Fearing for their safety, scores of Danish and Norwegian citizens flew out of Damascus on Sunday.
Norway said it would complain to the United Nations about Syria's failure to protect its embassy.
