Palestinian gunman kidnapped a German from a hotel in the West Bank city of Nablus today as the row escalated over cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Employees of the Yasmin Hotel in the city, said that two Palestinians took the man away at gunpoint from the hotel’s coffee shop, where he had been eating with two Palestinians. Palestinian security sources said that they believed the German’s first name was Christopher and that he was a volunteer for a non-governmental organisation.

Police later said that he had been freed and the suspected kidnappers arrested.

Earlier, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed faction in President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, threatened in a news conference to kidnap citizens of France, Denmark and Norway if they did not leave Nablus within 72 hours.

The threats were part of a storm that has erupted over the cartoons, first published in the right-of-centre Danish broadsheet Jyllands-Posten in September last year, and republished in Norway last month. Newspapers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain have also reprinted the caricatures.

The escalating row over the 12 caricatures has evolved into an ideological clash between Western freedom of speech and Muslim religious teachings, which rule that images of the prophet are idolatrous.

The dispute has triggered violent protests in the Muslim world. The European Union offices in Gaza have twice been besieged by Islamic militants. Syria and Saudi Arabia have withdrawn their ambassadors from Copenhagen. Threats have been issued against Europeans including murder, terrorist attacks, church burnings - and kidnapping.

The Muslim Association of Britain today called on all British broadcasters and newspapers not to publish the 'blasphemous' cartoon images. But the call came too late for several British newspapers and broadcasters - among them the BBC - which have already shown glimpses or partial images of the offending cartoons.

A Muslim Association spokesman said: "Printing or republishing these images is not advisable, knowing that they are going to offend. It will only infuriate the British members of the Muslim community and Muslims around the world. It will be insult to injury. You can’t reproduce these images in a sensitive manner."

Peter Mandelson, the EU's Trade Commissioner, has been drawn into the dispute as unofficial boycotts of Danish goods have swept the Middle East. Two large Danish firms have reported a dramatic fall in sales.

Mr Mandelson has already warned Saudi Arabia that the EU will take action at the World Trade Organisation action if the Riyadh government persists in sponsoring the boycott.

In Europe, some or all of the cartoons have now been reprinted by newspapers in Norway, France, Italy, Germany and Spain as a gesture of solidarity with the Jyllands-Posten and the principle of free speech.

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