By Rasha Elass
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Several thousand Syrian demonstrators set the Danish embassy on fire on Saturday to protest the printing by a Danish newspaper of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
The fire badly damaged the embassy’s building, a Reuters witness said, but fire engines later put it out. Protesters also threw stones at the building, shattering windows.
Chanting "God is Great," they stormed the embassy, burnt the Danish flag and replaced it with another flag reading "No God but Allah, Mohammad is His Prophet".
BBC News 24 quoted Jorgen Nielsen, the representative of Danish Institute in Damascus, as saying the building was empty at the time because the protest was expected. The embassy was closed on Saturday.
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"There were policemen there but it seems to have been a symbolic presence," he said.
A security official present at the scene said the building, located at the upscale Abou Remaneh area, also housed the Chilean and the Swedish embassy. He had no further details.
Cartoons published in a Danish newspaper and reprinted in several European publications, one depicting the Prophet Mohammad with a turban resembling a bomb, have caused uproar across the Muslim world.
Protestors were expected to march to the Norwegian embassy as well, witnesses said.
