AT LEAST six people were killed and dozens injured yesterday as enraged Muslims staged more violent demonstrations across Asia and the Middle East.

World leaders rallied round in a desperate attempt to stop the crisis spiralling out of control as more newspapers, including The Jerusalem Post, printed the pictures, more European embassies were attacked and more ambassadors recalled.

Iran suspended all trade with Denmark, where the cartoons were originally printed. Denmark warned its citizens to avoid travel to 14 Muslim countries. Travel companies cancelled tours and flights to Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, affecting 15,000 holidaymakers. Per Stig Moeller, the Danish Foreign Minister, said the protests were “beyond comprehension”.

As demonstrators in Tehran threw petrol bombs and stones at the Danish and Austrian embassies, Iran’s bestselling newspaper announced, in retaliation for the images, an international festival of cartoons about the Holocaust. Farid Mortazavi, graphics editor of Hamshahiri, said: “The Western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext of freedom of expression, so let’s see if they mean what they say and print these Holocaust cartoons.”

Four people were shot dead when police fired on two violent protests in Afghanistan, at the Bagram airbase and in the city of Mihtarlam. Danish troops in Afghanistan also came under fire.

A teenager was killed in a stampede in Somalia after police fired in the air to disperse stone-throwing protesters in the city of Bossaso. The body of a protester was found in the building that houses the Danish Embassy in Beirut, which was torched by demonstrators over the weekend, along with the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria.

The murder of an Italian Catholic priest in Turkey was also linked to the cartoons published by the Italian press, although there appeared to be no conclusive evidence.

Police fired on demonstrators in Indonesia after they started attacking the US and Danish consulates in the city of Surabaya. In Delhi police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse demonstrators who were burning Danish flags.

The furore spread to Australia, South Africa, Ukraine, Romania and, most significantly, Israel, as newspapers there printed the cartoons, bringing to 24 the number of countries in which they have appeared. As well as Denmark, the cartoons had already been printed in Austria, Norway, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, the Irish Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Hungary, United States, Japan, New Zealand, Jordan, Malaysia and Poland, where the editor of a leading daily and the Foreign Ministry apologised yesterday for any offence.

Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s acting Prime Minister, said all Danish organisations would be banned from working in the mainly Muslim region, where separatist rebels have been fighting federal troops for more than a decade. Human rights activists protested over the move, which they said would mainly affect the Danish Refugee Council.

The crisis, the biggest between Islam and the West since the Rushdie affair two decades ago, started in September when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons of Muhammad. Iran joined Libya, Syria and Saudi Arabia in withdrawing its ambassador from Denmark. Austria, which holds the rotating EU presidency, summoned the Iranian Ambassador to protest at the firebombing of the Austrian Embassy in Tehran.

Tehran announced the suspension of all trade with Denmark, Bahrain’s parliament urged all Arab countries to boycott Denmark, and Qatar’s chamber of commerce said it would not deal with Denmark or Norway. Pakistani doctors announced that they would not use medicines made in countries where the cartoons had been printed.

Western leaders including Tony Blair, President Chirac of France, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, rallied to Denmark, declaring that violence was unacceptable.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, and José Luis Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, published a joint article declaring: “We shall all be the losers if we fail immediately to defuse this situation, which can only leave a trail of mistrust and misunderstanding between both sides.”

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