Protesters in Syria decry Mohammed cartoons, threaten retaliation

Anger in Syria mounted Friday, over cartoons published in a Danish newspaper mocking Islam's Prophet Mohammed, with more public protests and calls for boycott of Danish products and threats of retaliation.

Worshippers entering the al-Murabet Mosque in Damascus for Friday prayers trod on the flags of Israel, France, Denmark and the United States at the entrance.

Banners denouncing the cartoons and calling for mass demonstration to be held Saturday in front of the Danish embassy in Damascus were seen hanging from buildings. Other banners called for a boycott of Danish, US and European products.

The leader of prayers at al-Murabet Mosque, which were attended by the exiled head of the Palestinian Hamas movement, Khaled Mashaal, said Muslims were to be blamed for their failure to tell the world about Prophet Muhammad, while also calling on them to defend their religion.

Mashaal said in a speech that Muslims would conquer the West, adding "their defeat (the West) has started in Palestine and that the US was being defeated in Iraq."

Mashaal called on the countries that published the cartoons to apologize to Muslims, threatening they would "regret it" otherwise.

Meanwhile, around 200 protestors gathered in front of the Danish embassy in Damascus and some 200 Palestinians led protests in at al-Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus.

The Danish ambassador to Syria met late Thursday with Syria's grand mufti, Sheikh Ahmed Badr al-Dean Hassoun, and conveyed Denmark's apology for the offense caused by the cartoons.

SANA news agency quoted the Danish ambassador as saying that the majority of the Danes were "very sorry for this situation which the newspaper has put them into."

Muslim imams and preachers called today Muslims to boycott commodities of states insulting Islam and Muslims as to face the escalating campaigns against Prophet Mohammed and Islamic symbols by European media.