Danish Embassy In Beirut Torched

Muslims Continue To Protest Violently Over Cartoons

(CBS/AP) 
In a bluntly worded statement, the White House blamed Syria for backing the protests and for failing to provide protect diplomatic facilities, calling it "inexcusable," reports CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement that the resentment over the caricatures "cannot justify violence, least of all when directed at people who have no responsibility for, or control over, the publications in question."

The Danish Foreign Ministry urged Danes to leave Lebanon quickly. The violence Saturday in Damascus prompted a similar warning.

"The government has no intention to insult Muslims," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said on public radio in Copenhagen. "We are trying to explain to everyone that enough is enough."

The Syrian state-run daily newspaper Al-Thawra said Denmark was to blame because its government had not apologized for the September publication of the caricatures in the Jyllands-Posten.

The drawings — including one depicting the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse — have since been republished in several European and New Zealand newspapers as a statement on behalf of a free press.

Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad for fear they could lead to idolatry.

"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 Al-Thawra newspaper said.

Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said he disapproves of the caricatures and any attacks on religion, but insisted he cannot apologize on behalf of his country's independent press.

Thousands also took to the streets elsewhere in the Muslim world and parts of Europe, including some 3,000 Afghans who burned a Danish flag and demanding that the editors at Jyllands-Posten be prosecuted for blasphemy.

Stepping up the pressure, the Islamic Army in Iraq, a key group in the insurgency fighting U.S.-led and Iraqi forces, posted a second Internet statement Sunday calling for gruesome violence against citizens of countries where the caricatures have been published.

A Lebanese security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the press, said Danish diplomats had evacuated the mission in Beirut two days earlier, anticipating the protests. Some 2,000 troops and police were deployed around the building.

The protesters, who came in buses from all over Lebanon, waved flags and banners.

"There is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God!" they shouted as they pushed against riot police.

Many Muslim clerics were among them.

"Regretfully, the march did more harm to the prophet than it did good," said Sunni Sheik Ibrahim Ibrahim, who was in the crowd, adding that those who attacked the church were "hooligans." He said he and others tried to stop the mob, but "we got stones and insults."

European leaders also urged calm and respect — both for religion and freedom of the press.

"The violence now, particularly the burning of Danish missions abroad, is absolutely outrageous and totally unjustified, and what we want to see is this matter being calmed down," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in London, adding that the media must exercise its free speech privilege responsibly.