Vatican: Mohammad cartoon adding fuel to the fire

The Vatican's official daily Osservatore Romano on Wednesday condemned a French weekly's decision to publish cartoons of a naked Prophet Mohammad as "fuel on the fire".

"The debatable initiative by the French magazine threatens... to add more fuel to the fire after the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi," the newspaper said.

"There is a risk of a new front in the protests," the daily said.

Sunni Islam's highest authority, the Al-Azhar mosque and university in Cairo, also condemned the caricatures saying that they were "offensive to Islam and its Prophet, the prophet of humanity."

The Vatican's spokesman earlier this month condemned anti-Muslim "provocations" and the resulting "unacceptable violence" after a deadly attack on a US consulate in Libya over a film deemed offensive to Islam.

(AFP)