PARIS - Fresh protests erupted across Asia and the Middle East over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Monday, despite calls by world leaders for calm after Danish diplomatic missions were set ablaze in Lebanon and Syria.


Pakistani Kashmiris burn an effigy of the Danish prime minister in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Monday, Feb 6, 2006 to condemn publication of cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad in Denmark. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday called on Muslims to accept apologies offered over published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and to act with "calm and dignity,"(AP Photo/Suntain Kiani)

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed alarm and urged restraint but oil giant Iran, which is reviewing trade ties with countries that published the cartoons, vowed to respond to "an anti-Islamic and Islamophobic current".

In Tehran, about 200 people pelted the embassy of EU president Austria with fire bombs over the cartoons and Iran"s nuclear confrontation with the West. The mission did not catch fire and police prevented people from storming it.

Denmark has been the focus of Muslim rage as the images, one showing the Prophet Mohammad with a turban resembling a bomb, first appeared in a Danish daily and the furor has developed into a clash between press freedom and religious respect.

"I call on all Arab countries to talk with moderation about what is happening," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said, in a view echoed by other leaders after the weekend riots in Beirut and Damascus. "Let"s keep it calm."

Ukraine became the latest country where papers published the cartoons, joining Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Poland, the United States, Japan, Norway, Malaysia and Australia.

Two Romanian newspapers on Monday published pictures of the pages of foreign newspapers showing the cartoons.

Furious Muslims once again took to the streets. One protester was killed in Afghanistan in clashes with police. Another person died at the weekend when flames forced him to jump from the burning Danish consulate in Beirut.

For Muslims, depicting the Prophet is prohibited by Islam but moderate Muslim groups, while condemning publication of the cartoons and bridling at what they see as provocation, expressed fears about radicals and militants hijacking the affair.

STERN WARNING

Speaking from Beirut, Omar Bakri Mohammad, leader of the

Islamist group al Muhajiroon which is banned in Britain, called for the execution of those involved with the cartoons.

"In Islam, God said, and the messenger Mohammad said, whoever insults a prophet, he must be punished and executed," he told BBC radio by telephone.

Britain issued a stern warning after protesters carried inflammatory placards. "The attacks on the citizens of Denmark and the people of other European countries are completely unacceptable as is the behavior of some of the demonstrators in London over the last few days," it said in a statement.

Moderate Moslem groups as well as Western leaders condemned the weekend violence and calls to arms and called for calm.

"With growing concern, we are witnessing the escalation in disturbing tensions...," the prime ministers of Turkey and Spain said in the International Herald Tribune.

"We shall all be the losers if we fail to immediately defuse this situation, which can only leave a trail of mistrust and misunderstanding between both sides in its wake," Tayyip Erdogan and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in the joint article.

But Iran responded angrily, saying the cartoons "launched an anti-Islamic and Islamophobic current which will be answered."

"It was an ugly measure. The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to sacrifice its life for its belief in Islam and the honor of the holy Prophet," Iran"s government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham told a news conference on Monday.

There were new protests about the cartoons outside the European Union offices in Gaza on Monday.

Waving fists, protesters chanted: "Down with Denmark. Down with Norway. With our blood we will redeem our Prophet."

In Afghanistan, one man was shot dead and two injured in clashes between protesters and police.

In the Afghan capital Kabul, hundreds of young men, many wielding sticks, marched through the city and attacked the Danish embassy with stones, smashing windows.

In Indonesia, the world"s most populous Muslim country, protesters in four cities demanded that Denmark apologize. Police fired warning shots to disperse 300 hardline Muslims when they threw rocks at police during a protest outside the Danish consulate in Indonesia"s second largest city, Surabaya.

About 300 protesters rallied in front of the Danish embassy in Thailand"s capital.

A Malaysian newspaper editor resigned after he embarrassed his Muslim boss by reprinting the cartoons to illustrate a story about the controversy.