Hamas joins call for calm in cartoon row

The radical Palestinian group Hamas joined voices for calm in the international furore sparked by cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, 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 have enlisted as suicide bombers and Denmark said it feared for the safety of its troops in Iraq.

Mullah Dadullah, one of the Taliban's most senior military commanders, said his Islamic extremist group had also offered a reward of 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of gold to anyone who killed people responsible for the drawings.

Meanwhile Afghan authorities arrested more than 40 Pakistani workers for inciting violence during a protest on Wednesday against the cartoons in which four people were killed.

The deaths in Qalat took to 11 the toll from five days of protests in Afghanistan against the cartoons. One person has also died in protests in Somalia and one in Lebanon.

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.

Danish military officials said the country's troops deployed in Iraq were keeping a low profile amid fears of an escalation of violence during the Shiite Muslim ceremony of Ashura.

They said some 500 Danish troops stationed under British command in Basra, in southern Iraq, were staying close to camp to avoid any clashes with Shiites.

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.

"Quiet debate and dialogue, without passion" is the way forward, Ali al-Samman, who heads an interconfessional dialogue committee at the prestigious seat of learning in the Egyptian capital said.

Visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Thursday called for cool.

"The situation should be brought under control as soon as possible,"Putin said.

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.

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."

The United States on Thursday also warned of potential violence during protests planned this week in Kenya's capital.

Kenyan Muslims have called for demonstrations, including a possible march on the Danish embassy in Nairobi.

Egyptian writer and Nobel literature prize laureate Naguib Mahfouz said a boycott of Danish products was "the only option" for Muslims to retaliate.

"The world only understands the language of force," he told the English-language Al-Ahram Weekly.

A boycott of Danish goods in Muslim countries in reaction to the cartoons has been gaining ground, with the European Union threatening retaliatory action against countries involved.

However in Berlin Liberal Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali said the European press had been right to publish the cartoons .

Ali, a close friend of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004, said media who "lacked the courage to show their readers the caricatures" should be ashamed.