BEIRUT, February 5, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Angry Lebanese protestors on Sunday, February 5, set on fire the Danish consulate in the capital Beirut in protest of the insulting cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), a day after infuriated Syrians torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus for the same purpose.

A number of armored trucks were also torched by the protestors, said the Doha-based Al-Jazeera channel.

Lebanese police fired tear gas on the protestors as they attempted to prevent them from assembling in front of the Danish consulate.

Some angry protestors seized an armored car but agreed to give it up to police in return for allowing them to head for the consulate building.

The attack came only one day after angry Syrians stormed and set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus over the inciting cartoons.

Twelve cartoons, first published last September by Denmark's mass-circulation Jyllands-Posten and then reprinted by several European dailies, have caused an uproar in the Muslim world and triggered a new cultural battle over freedom of speech and respect of religions.

Incensed Muslims have demonstrated against Denmark, burnt its flags and boycotted its products, while several Muslim ambassadors have been recalled in protest.

Hundreds of Danish Muslims and leftist activists took to the streets in protest over the anti-Prophet cartoons. (Reuters).

Anti-Denmark demonstrations over the cartoons continued Sunday unabated across the Muslim world, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In Afghanistan, more than 1,000 people took to the streets of Mehtarlam, the capital of the eastern province of Laghman, demanding the prosecution of people responsible for publishing the drawings.

The villagers and tribesmen called on the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai to expel Danish troops operating under a NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.

The demonstrators, watched by dozens of security forces, also urged severe punishment for those involved in publishing the cartoons.

Hundreds of people marched in a similar demonstration in northern Kunduz province Saturday, police said.

Denmark has more than 170 troops in Afghanistan, a force it plans to expand this year to 360.

In Mali, more than a thousand Muslims demonstrated Saturday afternoon in the capital Bamako to protest the cartoons.

Shouting "God is great" and "the guilty should be punished", the protestors marched for two kilometers through the city before staging an impromptu rally.

They carried banners demanding the "punishment without mercy" of the perpetrators of the "serious crime" and calling for a "systematic boycott" of Danish goods.

"We, members of the Muslim Community of Mali, condemn these blasphemous acts, which spark tensions between religions," the organizers told the rally.

Sources close to the Muslim Community of Mali, an umbrella organization bringing together several religious associations, said other activities would be organized until such time as the "guilty are punished".

The demonstrators included a number of women, a somewhat rare sight in Mali.

The march passed off peacefully, under the eyes of a small number of police officers.

The publication of the cartoons left its toll on the political scene in Denmark itself as hundreds of followers of the far left and extreme right took to the streets Saturday.

Danish police forces cordoned off a demonstration spearheaded by the extreme-right grouping Danish Front in Hilleroed, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) northeast of Copenhagen.

This came after circulated reports that the protestors planned to burn copies of the Noble Qur'an in protest of the Muslim angry protests over the cartoons.

Although the protests ended peacefully, police arrested 200 Danish Muslims who attempted to go to the march scene in a bid to prevent any burning of their holy book.

Danish Muslim leaders have warned of grave consequences if copies of the Noble Qur’an were burnt in the rally.

"All hell will break loose, if those extremists burn the Qur’an," Raed Halil, the head of the European Committee for Defending Prophet Muhammad, told IslamOnline.net.

Also Saturday, hundreds of Danish leftist activists demonstrated in Hilleroed in support of Muslims and in protest of the anti-Muslim rally by the far-right front.

"We say no to the racist and ignorant Danish Front demonstration against Muslims in Denmark and in the world," Daniel Savi, a local secretary of the youth wing of the Socialist People's party, which organized the left-wing march, told AFP.

Also read:

• When Muhammad Is Insulted by Non-Muslims

• The Simple Life of Muhammad (PBUH)