WASHINGTON, March 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The U.S. largest radio chain is to apologize on air for an Islamophobic skit that claimed Muslims have sex with animals, avoid bathing and are obsessed with killing Jews, an official of Clear Channel Communications station KFI said on Tuesday, March 16.

"In the process, we unwittingly offended a lot of people, and for that we are very sorry," KFI Program Director Robin Bertolucci told Reuters on Tuesday.

In the March 10 Bill Handel show on the station, a pretend "Muslim" allegedly reading from the new Iraqi constitution refers to "hairy Iraqi women," "lovely Japanese schoolgirls," the "infidel custom of bathing on a regular basis," and "civil unions" between Iraqis and "loving camels and goats".

Throughout the skit, the mock Muslim repeatedly stated "Allah be praised," "death to the Jews" and "kill all Jews."

Another part, he said, granted Iraqi men 72 virgins when they entered heaven, adding: "the virgins, however, will not be hairy Iraqi women but lovely Japanese schoolgirls".

A third section banned Western teachings from the country, including "the infidel custom of bathing on a regular basis", the fake scholar claimed.

The performer added that a section of document read: "Consenting civil unions between Iraqis and loving camels and goats will be recognized".

"That was not our intention. Our intention was to be satirical," Bertlucci said.

Islam also calls for Muslims to be as clean as tidy, with one religious saying stressing that cleanliness is part and parcel of the religion.

The would-be apology comes after a Islamic rights group has filed a federal complaint against the Los Angeles talk radio station.

Sabiha Khan, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said her group filed the complaint after KFI and Handel initially refused to apologize.

"We're tired of being stepped all over and being made fun of over airwaves," she said.

"No American should ever have to take this type of treatment," she added.

Khan said the skit obviously "crossed the line from comedy to outright bigotry and racism that could negatively impact the lives of ordinary American Muslims".

"The KFI program contained some of the most hate-filled and Islamophobic statements reported to CAIR in recent years," she said.

She wrote in a letter to the chain saying "we fully respect and value freedom of speech, including for Mr. Handel, however, these Islamophobic comments are outrageous and hurtful".

The station recently voted to fine Clear Channel $250,000 for nine alleged indecency violations.

The slur came a few days after Syndicated American columnist Ann Coulter, who frequently appears as a guest on cable news programs, made an Islamophobic remark in a recent commentary on Mel Gibson's new film "The Passion of the Christ".

"Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity (as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed')," Coulter said.

She also referred to the allegedly "(Prophet) Muhammad's many specific instructions to kill non-believers whenever possible".

Coulter has made a number of similarly anti-Muslim comments since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Washington blames on Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

Immediately following the attacks, she suggested that "we should invade their [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," she had said.

Coulter also claimed in Worldnetdaily.com that "while Judaism and Christianity begin with the Creation, Islam reveres a God who creates nothing".

Following the September 11 attacks, hate crimes against Muslims witness a huge increase.

The Chicago-based syndicated radio commentator Paul Harvey, the most listened-to radio personality in the United States, claimed in December 2003 that Islam