Thousands of Pakistani Islamists protest cartoons

LAHORE, Pakistan, March 17 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of hardline Islamists rallied in Pakistan today to protest against cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad with many criticising Muslim governments for being soft to the West.

Muslims consider the cartoons, first published in Denmark last year, blasphemous. They sparked widespread protests across the Muslim world after they were reprinted in European papers this year.

Amidst chants of Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest), up to 25,000 activists of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group fighting in the Indian-ruled Kashmir, protested in the eastern city of Lahore.

''The leaders of the Muslim countries should not behave like Western puppets,'' Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, told the rally.

''They must forcefully take up the issue with the United Nations or declare jihad (holy war) against those who drew and published these blasphemous cartoons.'' Witnesses said the protest was peaceful and there were no reports of violence.

Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2001 and put Jamaat-ud-Dawa in its watchlist of organisations sponsoring terrorism in 2003.

Anti-cartoon protests have largely died down in mainly Muslim Pakistan, but Islamists are using the controversy to whip up anger against the United States and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

REUTERS DKS BST1930