Cartoons: Hamas calls for calm
2006-02-09 20:26
Doha - The radical Palestinian group Hamas joined voices for calm on Thursday in the international furore sparked by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, as a Taliban commander in Afghanistan said 100 suicide bombers were lined up on the side of further violence.
Hamas "is prepared to play a role in calming the situation between the Islamic world and Western countries on condition that these countries commit themselves to putting an end to attacks against the feelings of Muslims", the organisation's leader Khaled Meshaal told a news conference.
His conciliatory tone came a day after he warned the Western press was "playing with fire" by publishing the cartoons which have led to riots around the world.
As Muslim protests over the cartoons subsided on Thursday a Taliban commander in Afghanistan warned that 100 militants had enlisted as suicide bombers and Denmark said it feared for the safety of its troops in Iraq.
100kg of gold
Mullah Dadullah, one of the Taliban's most senior military commanders, said his Islamic extremist group had also offered a reward of 100kg of gold to anyone who killed people responsible for the drawings.
The cartoons, including one showing the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, were first published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in September, but have since been widely reprinted.
Demonstrations and sometimes fatal riots have taken place around the Muslim world in reaction, with several Danish diplomatic missions attacked.
However, the violence was increasingly replaced on Thursday by the calls for calm.
A senior figure at Al-Azhar, the highest authority in Sunni Islam, said it was time to move on from high emotion to constructive dialogue in the row.
In Brussels EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini called for an urgent "relaunch of dialogue" with the Islamic world in response to the wave of protests.
Open letter
Nearly 3 000 Danes had by Thursday afternoon signed an open letter calling for "peace with the Muslim world".
In Paris close to 100 Arab and European academics, political and religious figures also issued a joint appeal for "moderation and wisdom" in the row.
However in Lebanon, the head of the country's Shiite movement Hezbollah insisted on an apology over the cartoons, as hundreds of thousands of Shiites gathered in southern Beirut to mark the Ashura ceremony.
"There will be no compromise before we receive an apology," Hassan Nasrallah told the crowds at the Shiite gathering.
Up to 15 000 South African Muslims also took to the streets in Cape Town and handed over a petition to the Danish consulate.
The protestors sang Arabic songs and carried banners stating "Cartooning our Prophet will earn you no profit" and "We will sacrifice our lives for our Prophet."