Kabul - The Taliban called on the Muslim world Tuesday to declare a holy war over the Prophet Mohammed cartoons that have appeared in publications around the globe as violent demonstrations continued around Afghanistan, a day after three people died there in protests over the caricatures.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yussif Ahmadi told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that particularly Danish soldiers would become the targets of fighters with Afghanistan's former fundamentalist regime.
'All foreign invaders in Afghanistan are our targets but because of the insult, we will especially attack Danish soldiers,' he said.
A Danish newspaper was the first to publish the 12 cartoons of Mohammed, which have provoked protests by Muslims around the world. They have since been republished in a number of countries, including Norway, Germany, France, Spain, Malaysia, Jordan and New Zealand.
The Taliban spokesman's declaration came a day after protests over the cartoons turned deadly in Afghanistan with two people killed in Bargram, north of Kabul, and one killed in the eastern city of Mihtarlam after shots were fired at the protests.
On Tuesday, the protests continued in Kabul and seven provinces, some of them violent.
A soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was injured when he was hit by stones in a demonstration in the northern city of Pul-i-Kumri, security officials said.
In Maymana in northwest Afghanistan, ISAF peacekeepers used tear gas and low-flying aircraft to disperse a protest outside their camp.
In the capital, protesters unsuccessfully tried to force their way into the Danish embassy compound, witnesses said. Police used batons to force them back.
In the unrest in Maymana, about 200 to 300 people attacked the ISAF camp, throwing stones and breaking through the camp gates, the Norwegian military said. Some equipment was also set on fire, the defence forces said.
Initial reports suggested that one or two bystanders were injured by flying stones.
About 20 Norwegians are based at the camp.
The newspapers and magazines that have published the cartoons cited freedom of speech and the press as the reason they reprinted the cartoons, but Muslims, who reject any depiction of their prophet, have called the drawing blasphemous.
