Deadly Protests Of Cartoons In Libya

10 Killed As Protestors Set Fire To Italian Consulate

(CBS/AP) 
The Italian ambassador to Tripoli met late Friday with the Libyan interior minister "who expressed the condemnation of his government for the acts of violence occurring in Benghazi," the Italian Foreign Ministry said.

In Pakistan, the cleric Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi said the mosque and the religious school he leads would give a $25,000 reward and a car for killing the cartoonist who drew the caricatures — considered blasphemous by many Muslims. He said a local jewelers' association would also give $1 million, but no representative of the association was available to confirm the offer.

"This is a unanimous decision of by all imams of Islam that whoever insults the prophets deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize," he said.

Qureshi did not name any cartoonist and he did not appear aware that 12 different people had drawn the pictures.

A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, first printed the caricatures in September. The newspaper has since apologized to Muslims for the cartoons, one of which shows Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Other Western newspapers, mostly in Europe, have reprinted the pictures, asserting their news value and the right to freedom of expression.

In Denmark, a spokesman for Jyllands-Posten declined comment on the bounty offer. But Mogens Blicher Bjerregaard, president of the Danish Journalist Union and spokesman for the cartoonists, condemned it.

"It is totally absurd what is happening. The cartoonists just did their job and they did nothing illegal," he said.

He said the cartoonists — who have been living under police protection since last year — are aware of the reward and are "feeling bad about the whole situation."

Pakistani intelligence officials have said scores of members of radical and militant Islamic groups have incited violence in a bid to undermine President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government, a close ally of the United States.

On Friday, police confined the leader of the militant group Jamaat al-Dawat, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, to his home to stop him from addressing supporters, his spokesman Yahya Mujahid said. A senior police official in Lahore confirmed Saeed's detention and said the government had ordered police to restrict the movement of religious leaders who might address rallies and to round up religious activists "who could be any threat to law and order."

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

In Islamabad, visiting former President Bill Clinton criticized the cartoons but said Muslims wasted an opportunity to build better ties with the West by holding violent protests.

"I can tell you, most people in the United States deeply respect Islam ... and most people in Europe do," he said.

Denmark, meanwhile, said it had temporarily closed its embassy in Pakistan and urged Danes to leave the country. Last week, Denmark temporarily shut its embassies in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Indonesia.

Before Friday, a total of 19 people had died in protests over the caricatures, with the deadliest day being Feb. 8, when police in Afghanistan shot and killed four protesters outside the U.S. military base in the southern city of Qalat.