KARACHI, Pakistan – About 5,000 children chanting “Hang those who insulted the prophet” rallied in Pakistan’s largest city yesterday in the latest protest in the Islamic nation against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The children, ages 8 to 12, burned a coffin draped in American, Israeli, and Danish flags at a traffic intersection in the port city of Karachi as police in riot gear looked on.

The rally was organized by Pakistan’s largest Islamic group, Jamaate-Islami. The children, some wearing school uniforms and headbands emblazoned with “God is great,” were released from schools to take part.

Jamaat-e-Islami is part of a radical coalition of six Islamic parties that has rallied Muslims throughout Pakistan in recent weeks against the cartoons despite bans on protests in some cities.

Opposition lawmaker Liaqat Baluch, deputy secretary-general of the coalition, on Tuesday welcomed the European Union’s first statement on the controversy.

E.U. foreign ministers said Monday they regretted the cartoons were “considered offensive” by Muslims around the world after first appearing in a Danish newspaper in September.

But Mr. Baluch demanded an apology from Denmark, saying it “has not so far acknowledged its mistake.”

Mr. Baluch also said a “line should be drawn” between freedom of expression – the justification newspapers gave for reproducing the drawings, which Muslims consider blasphemous – and actions that offend cultural sensitivities.

“A freedom of expression that destroys world peace is against basic human rights,” he said.

The religious coalition has been leading protests against the cartoons, drawing thousands of people to the streets of the conservative Islamic nation. At least five people died in two Pakistani cities when recent protests turned violent.

Mr. Baluch said the E.U. must take steps to ensure that another controversy such as the cartoon dispute doesn’t occur in the future.

“This is a good step forward, but it is incomplete,” Mr. Baluch said of the E.U. statement.

Islamic tradition bans representations of Muhammad.

Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, yesterday accused his political enemies of encouraging the cartoon protests in his country to destablize his government. He promised to arrest those who were fomenting religious hatred for their own purpose.

“We need to get a hold of those leaders behind the scene who incite people for political ends,” he said in an interview with ABC television news.

“These are the people who are inciting them for political ends. Their interest is not so much in the blasphemy but in creating some kind of destabilization against me, against the government. That is their interest. And the moment we get hold of the people behind the scene, it will die down.”

Mr Musharraf described intelligence about Al Qaeda members hiding out in Pakistan, given to him by Afghan President Karzai, as “a waste of time.”

“The CIA has been involved and I’ve told my intelligence agencies to involve the foreign intelligence also, bring them in also and take them to the place where they have said that Mullah Omar is there and show them which families are living in those houses so that their lies are once and for all nailed down,” he said.

Describing events in Pakistan as “tense and difficult,” Christian leaders in Pakistan yesterday condemned “the irresponsible mob violence and destruction of private properties” against Christians since the cartoon protests, in a letter to be read out in churches on the next two Sundays.

“The people [Muslims] here are deeply hurt and, understandably, there is lot of anger among Muslims,” Bishop Joseph Coutts of Faisalabad, Pakistan, told the Catholic News Service. “The anger and frustration is taken out on the Christian community, as we are seen as one with the Christian West.”

Christians account for less than 3% of Pakistan’s 162 million people, 97% of whom are Muslims.