TIMELINE: Prophet Mohammad cartoons
(Reuters) - The Vatican rejected on Thursday new accusations by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the publication of cartoons mocking Islam's Prophet Mohammad was part of a "new crusade" involving Pope Benedict.
The cartoons were first published by the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, but the row erupted after other papers reprinted them in 2006. At least 50 people have been killed in related protests.
Here is a chronology of the row over the cartoons:
September 2005 - Danish daily Jyllands-Posten publishes the cartoons.
January 10, 2006 - The Christian newspaper Magazinet in Oslo reprints the cartoons.
January 26 - Muslim anger over the cartoons sparks a boycott of Danish dairy products in Saudi Arabia.
January 29 - Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen says his government cannot be held responsible for what is published in independent media.
January 30 - Denmark's Jyllands-Posten issues an apology.
February 1 - Newspapers in France and Germany reprint the cartoons, saying press freedom is more important than protests.
-- The owner of Paris newspaper France Soir sacks his managing editor after the paper prints the cartoons.
February 4/5 - Thousands of demonstrators set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and Beirut. Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan al-Sabaa resigns.
February 6 - Iran cuts all trade ties with Denmark.
February 7 - Iran's best-selling newspaper, Hamshahri, launches a competition for the best cartoon about the Holocaust in retaliation for the cartoons of the Prophet.
February 10 - Protests continue worldwide; protesters burn a Danish and an American flag at the Danish embassy in Caracas.
February 17 - Maulana Yousef Qureshi, a Muslim cleric in Pakistan, and his followers offer rewards amounting to over $1 million to anyone who kills the Danish cartoonists.
April 24 - Osama bin Laden calls, in a tape message, for those who ridiculed the Prophet Mohammad to be killed.
October 26 - A Danish court rules that a Danish newspaper did not libel Muslims by printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
February 12, 2008 - Police arrest two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent in Denmark for planning to kill a cartoonist who drew one of the cartoons in 2005.
February 13 - Danish newspapers reprint one of the drawings of the Prophet Mohammad. The newspapers said they were reprinting the drawing in protest over the plot.
February 15 - Thousands of supporters of the Islamist group Hamas protest in the Gaza Strip against the reprinting. Over the next few days, rallies also take place in Indonesia and Jordan.
February 28 - Three thousand students protest in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott against the reprinting of the cartoons.
March 7 - Islamists hold demonstrations in Pakistan's main cities to protest at the republication of the drawing.
-- About 1,000 Danish Muslims demonstrate peacefully.
March 19 - Bin Laden says in a new message posted on the Internet that Europe would be punished for the cartoons and was part of a "new crusade" in which Pope Benedict was involved.
