US President George W. Bush assured Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of his "support and solidarity" over violence sparked by caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed (), the White House said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac had previously called Rasmussen after the attacks on Danish missions, raising spirits in Copenhagen which had been feeling rather isolated

Bush telephoned Rasmussen from his Air Force One presidential plane, and the two "agreed that the way forward is through dialogue and tolerance, not violence," said spokesman Scott McClellan.

"The president expressed support and solidarity with Denmark in the aftermath of the violence against the Danish and other diplomatic facilities," McClellan told reporters.

"Obviously this support from major countries lifts some of the pressure and soothes us, especially when it comes from the Americans and British, who slightly disappointed us earlier by their criticism and lack of solidarity," said one Danish diplomat.

But in the Muslim world there were few signs that anger was abating.

Protesters attacked offices of Norway's NATO troops in Afghanistan, leaving four protesters dead. It was the second day in a row that demonstrators were killed in Afghanistan.

Up to 700 demonstrators rampaged through the northern Afghan city of Maymana Tuesday, throwing stones at a UN office and a compound of a reconstruction project led by Norwegian troops, witnesses and officials said.

When they tried to enter the compound, soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force used tear gas, prompting the crowd to hurl hand grenades.

Iranian demonstrators briefly stormed the Danish embassy in Tehran Tuesday and stoned the Norwegian mission. The assaults, the second round in two days, prompted Tehran's authorities to join calls for an end to attacks on European missions, saying they were not in the interests of the Islamic Republic.

Meanwhile, the European Union slammed Iran's decision to suspend trade with Denmark, and said it was studying a response.

In the Pakistani city of Peshawar nearly 3,000 people on Tuesday attended a rally called by the Islamist government of North West Frontier Province, shouting "Hang the cartoonists!"

In Pakistan's remote North Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan, some 5,000 tribesmen and students held a protest march and burnt a Danish flag.

Demonstrators in Dhaka also burned a flag during a protest organised by the Jamaat-e-Islami, the second largest party in Bangladesh's four-party coalition government.

Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed what he called provocations in the worldwide row, calling on editors to "think 100 times" before publishing such pictures.

"I think that any provocation in this area is absolutely unacceptable. Before publishing something, doing something or drawing, you need to think 100 times."

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country holds the EU presidency, called for a dialogue with Islamic countries to stop the violence. She asked EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to meet in Jeddah with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which groups 57 Islamic countries, to discuss ways to end the tension.

OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu condemned attacks on European embassies.

In a statement, Ihsanoglu expressed "his disapproval over these regrettable and deplorable incidents" and said "overreactions surpassing the limits of peaceful democratic acts... are dangerous and detrimental" to Islam.

PHOTO CAPTION

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (R) and US President George W. Bush answer questions at a press conference in front of Prime Minister's house, Marienborg, 2005. (AFP)

AFP