The United States accused Syria and Iran of using the international row over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to incite anti-Western sentiment as worldwide protests continued and Islamic anger turned against Britain and America.
Four protesters in Afghanistan were killed when police intervened to stop hundreds of demonstrators marching on a US military base in Qalat in southern Afghanistan.
At least 14 people have been killed so far in protests across the Islamic world over the cartoons, which were first published in a Danish newspaper in September and have been re-printed across Europe.
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Some 200 demonstrators hurled stones at the British Embassy in Tehran, breaking windows in the building, in a dual protest over the Muhammad cartoons and Britain’s stand in Iran’s nuclear row with the West.
They chanted “Death to Britain” and “We are willing to sacrifice our lives for the Prophet Muhammad”, even though no UK newspaper has published the cartoons, although glimpses have been shown on BBC television.
“We are here to protest Britain’s role in sending us to the UN Security Council. We must defend our right to nuclear technology,” said protester Mohammad Ali, 32.
As Washington grappled with mounting anger among Muslims, President Bush condemned the violence while admonishing the media to be more “thoughtful” of others.
But Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, sharpened the political dimension of the controversy by charging Iran and Syria with stoking sectarian feelings.
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Emerging from talks with the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, Dr Rice said that some Muslim countries were behaving responsibly, but “there are governments that have also used this opportunity to incite violence.”
“I don’t have any doubt that ... Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes. And the world ought to call them on it,” she said.
Dr Rice went further than previous US statements which accused Tehran and Damascus of not doing enough to rein in the violent protests over the satirical images of Mohammed first published in a Danish paper.
“Nothing justifies the violence that has broken out in which many innocent people have been injured,” she said. “Nothing justifies the burning of diplomatic facilities or threats to diplomatic facilities around the world.”
There were passionate protests elsewhere. Up to 700 people demonstrated against the drawings in Bosnia, walking from the Norwegian to the French and Danish embassies in Sarajevo and handing a written protest to embassy staff.
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Riot police were deployed and barricades had been erected in front of the embassy buildings. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, Muslim protesters burned European flags and demanded a boycott of EU goods, but were turned back before they could reach the diplomatic enclave.
Dozens of international observers were forced to abandon the volatile West Bank city of Hebron after irate crowds smashed windows and tried to invade their headquarters, only to be beaten back by Palestinian police.
The 11 Danish members of the observer force, known as the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, left the city a week ago when the furore first erupted.
Officials in Afghanistan have suggested that al-Qaeda has played a role in fomenting popular anger over the cartoons, one of which portrays the Prophet as a terrorist figure with a bomb in his turban.
Two Pakistanis were arrested in today’s protest for allegedly firing at police and a local police chief said they were being interrogated to see whether they were linked to Osama bin Laden’s terror network.
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The Indonesian Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirajuda, was another to suggest that extremist groups were taking advantage of the row to target Western interests. “The cartoons have hurt the Islamic community, so it has added to ammunition for radical groups to exploit the situation,” he said.
After a meeting at the White House with King Abdullah of Jordan, Mr Bush called for calm and urged government leaders to do what they could to end the protests.
“I call upon the governments around the world to stop the violence, to be respectful, to protect property, protect the lives of innocent diplomats who are serving their countries overseas,” he said. The Jordanian King criticised the cartoons but said that those wanting to protest should do so peacefully.
The caricatures were first published in the right-wing Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, whose culture editor, Flemming Rose, said today that he had no regrets over his decision to publish the cartoons.
Rose told CNN that he came up with the idea after several cases of local “self-censorship” involving people fearing reprisals from Muslims.
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“There was a story out there and we had to cover it,” Rose said. “We just chose to cover it in a different way, according to the principal: Don’t tell it, show it.”
Rose added: “I do not regret it. I think it is like asking a rape victim if she regrets wearing a short skirt at a discotheque Friday night. In that sense, in our culture, if you’re wearing a short skirt, that does not necessarily mean you invite everybody to have sex with you.
“As is the case with these cartoons, if you make a cartoon, make fun of religion, make fun of religious figures, that does not imply that you humiliate or denigrate or marginalise a religion.”
But British Muslim scholars who met in Birmingham to discuss the controversy did not agree and called for a change in the law to prevent the publication of insulting pictures of Muhammad.
Shaikh Faiz Saddiqi, a spokesman for the group, said that the scholars had also suggested modification of the Race Relations Act to give Muslims the same rights as Jews and Sikhs.
“Insulting the Prophet of Islam is worse than insulting your wife, children or sister,” he said. “It happens once, it happens twice but a third time you are going to take action. Enough is enough, we have to get back to being a civil society.”
A French satirical magazine became the latest publication to carry the 12 Danish cartoons. Charlie Hebdo, a left-wing weekly magazine named after Charlie Brown from the Peanuts cartoon strip, has placed several members of staff under police protection because of its decision to publish.
A court challenge from several French Muslim organisations against the publication was dismissed on a legal technicality yesterday and the magazine appeared this morning in newsagents, where it was kept off display and placed face down on the counter.
“This is good news to us all,” said Philippe Val, the magazine’s editor, after yesterday’s ruling. “We are defending the principle of the right for caricature and satire.”
The decision to publish was greeted angrily by President Chirac, who accused newspapers of “provocation” by continuing to print the cartoons.
“Anything that can hurt the convictions of another, particularly religious convictions, must be avoided. Freedom of expression must be exercised in a spirit of responsibility,” M Chirac told his Cabinet. “I condemn all manifest provocation that might dangerously fan passions.”
After newspapers in Croatia and Yemen reprinted some of the drawings yesterday, one or more of the cartoons has now appeared in 30 countries.
Tit-for-tat images, including a Holocaust cartoon competition in Iran, have been commissioned in response, although Jyllands-Posten has said that it will publish those too in a display of its free speech principles.