Bomb Threat to Repentant Danish Paper

The offices of Denmark's bestselling broadsheet newspaper were evacuated last night following a bomb threat - a day after the editor-in-chief apologised for publishing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that offended Muslims.

The move came hours after a prominent Danish Muslim group, which led the criticisms of the paper after it published 12 cartoons featuring depictions of the prophet last September, said it accepted the apology from Jyllands-Posten.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, also welcomed the apology issued by Carsten Juste, the newspaper's editor-in-chief.

Mr Rasmussen said yesterday: "I am pleased to note that this apology has been received positively by Muslim communities in Denmark and that they have pledged support for our efforts."

But the Iranian government highlighted the deep anger in the Muslim world by summoning the Danish ambassador to the foreign ministry. Iranian television said that Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister, had demanded an apology from the Danish government. There have also been protests in the occupied territories and Iraq.

The cartoons have caused deep anger because Islam bans any depiction of Muhammad and the images were deemed grossly offensive. One drawing showed him wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse.

In Iraq, the influential Sunni Muslim Clerics' Association backed the boycott of products from Denmark which Saudi religious leaders have supported and widened it to Norway, where a newspaper has also printed the cartoons.

"We join our voices to those who called for an economic and diplomatic boycott of Denmark and Norway unless those two countries submit an official apology and admit their mistake," a spokesman said.