Pakistan summoned the envoys of nine Western countries in protest, and even Europeans took to the streets in Denmark and Britain to voice their anger.
At the heart of the protest are 12 caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed first published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September and reprinted in European media in the past week. One depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship when it came to Muslim issues.
The drawings have touched a raw nerve, in part, because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid depictions of the prophet.
Aggravating the affront, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark has said repeatedly he cannot apologize for his country's free press. But other European leaders tried yesterday to calm the storm.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said she understood Muslims were hurt, though that did not justify violence.
''Freedom of the press is one of the great assets as a component of democracy, but we also have the value and asset of freedom of religion," Merkel told an international security conference in Munich.
The Vatican deplored the violence but said certain provocative forms of criticism were unacceptable. ''The right to freedom of thought and expression . . . cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers," the Vatican said in its first statement on the controversy.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain, who has criticized European media for reprinting the caricatures, said there was no justification for the violence in Damascus. ''We stand in solidarity with the Danish government in its call for calm and its demand that all its diplomats and diplomatic premises are properly protected. It's incumbent on the Syrian authorities to act in this regard."
But Denmark and Norway did not wait for more violence. With their embassies in Damascus up in flames, the foreign ministries advised their citizens to leave Syria without delay.
