BERLIN, Feb. 16 A cartoon in a German newspaper likening Iranian soccer players to suicide bombers has provoked anger in Iran and an official demand for an apology.

The cartoon, published last Friday in Der Tagesspiegel, depicts Iranian soccer players with bombs strapped to their waists standing next to a group of German football players in the uniforms of the German Army, or Bundeswehr. The caption reads: "Why the Bundeswehr absolutely has to be deployed at the World Cup."

Editors at the paper and the cartoonist, Klaus Stuttmann, said the cartoon was intended as a commentary on an ongoing debate in Germany about whether the army should be used as a security force when the World Cup is held here this summer. It was not, they said, intended as a satire on Iran or even as a comment on suicide bombing.

But earlier this week, the Iranian Embassy in Berlin demanded that the paper apologize for the cartoon. On Tuesday demonstrators in Tehran threw firebombs at the German Embassy.

An Iranian sports newspaper, 90, called the cartoon shameless, adding, "It is now clear that the Germans are influenced by the Zionists and that they have degraded themselves."

In an interview on Tuesday in Der Tagesspiegel, Mr. Stuttmann said he had received hundreds of threatening e-mail messages from around the world, including some death threats.

The Iranian protests, though much smaller than the ones provoked throughout the Muslim world by Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, have been seen here as another instance in which Muslim anger has become a threat to freedom of expression.

"This caricaturist is traumatized for the rest of his life, and this is a success of the fanatical Islamic world," Giovanni di Lorenzo, an outside director of Der Tagesspiegel, said Thursday. "It was not his best caricature, no doubt about it, but he is afraid for his life."

Editors at Der Tagesspiegel, in a front-page commentary on Wednesday, said they regretted Iran"s reaction to the cartoon, but they have not apologized for it.

"The cartoon is within the range of this country"s freedom of opinion," the editors" comment said.

The paper"s editor, Gerd Appenzeller, did not comment on the link often made between Islamic extremism and suicide bombers.