Denmark urged its citizens on Saturday to immediately leave Indonesia, saying they were facing an "imminent" danger from an extremist group over the drawings of the Prophet Mohammed.
The warning came hours after Denmark announced it had withdrawn embassy staff from Indonesia, Iran and Syria -- countries where Danish embassy buildings have been attacked by rioting mobs protesting the cartoons.
"There is concrete information that indicates that an extremist group actively will seek out Danes in protest of the publication of the Mohammed drawings," the ministry said in a statement. It did not name the group.
All Danes should leave the country as soon as possible because they were facing "a significant and imminent danger," the ministry said, adding the threat was focused on the eastern part of Java, but could spread to other parts of the country, including Bali.
Earlier on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said it withdrew all Danish staff from Indonesia and Iran after they had received threats. Diplomats were also pulled from Syria because they were not getting enough protection from authorities, the ministry said.
The Danish ambassador to Lebanon left earlier this week after the embassy building in Beirut was burned by protesters.
The small Scandinavian country is shell-shocked by the wave of anti-Danish protests, some of them violent, that have spread across the Muslim world.
Danish paper Jyllands-Posten, which published the cartoons in September, apologized for offending Muslims but stood by its decision to print the drawings, citing the freedom of speech.
The newspaper's culture editor, Flemming Rose, who was in charge of the drawings, went on indefinite leave on Thursday but many Muslims said that would do little to quell the uproar.
The paper has denied that Rose was ordered to go leave because he suggested reprinting Holocaust drawings solicited by an Iranian newspaper, setting off a dispute earlier this week with Jyllands-Posten's editor-in-chief.
Clausen said Rose had been under "tremendous pressure" as the conflict escalated with attacks on Danish embassies and anti-Danish protests throughout the Muslim world.
Abdul Wahid Pedersen, a Danish imam, said Rose's departure would have little effect, and might even escalate the situation by giving the impression the newspaper was more worried about offending Jews than offending Muslims.
Denmark has also sought Malaysia's help to ease worldwide anger over the caricatures, Malaysian media reported yesterday.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said he received a call from his Danish counterpart on Friday over the matter, the Star newspaper reported.
In Algeria, the government closed two newspapers and arrested their editors for printing obscured images of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, colleagues said yesterday.
And Yemen has detained three journalists and is seeking a fourth after closing their newspapers for republishing the satirical cartoons, officials said.
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