Hundreds of Syrian demonstrators stormed the Danish Embassy in Damascus today and set fire to the building, witnesses said.
The demonstrators were protesting over offensive caricatures of Islam's Prophet Mohammed that were first published in a Danish newspaper several months ago.
Witnesses said the demonstrators set fire to the entire building, which also houses the embassies of Chile and Sweden.
Earlier dozens of Palestinian youths tried to storm the office of the European Union in Gaza in protest over the printed cartoons.
The protesters threw stones at the EU office, burnt tyres outside and tried to enter the compound. They later clashed with security forces who intervened and arrested two youths.
The protests come amid outrage across the Muslim world over the publication of the cartoons in several European countries. Islamic tradition prohibits depictions of prophets as blasphemous.
Police and witnesses said the youths had managed to take down the EU flag from the building and replace it with the Palestinian flag.
They chanted slogans against Denmark and pledged to give their "blood to redeem the Prophet".
Youths also attacked Germany's nearby representative office, smashing windows with hammers and damaging the courtyard.
A burned German flag was found on the floor. No staff were believed to have been in either building.
Last night the United States backed Muslims against European newspapers in a move that could help America's battered image in the Islamic world.
Inserting itself into a dispute which has become a lightning rod for anti-European sentiment across the Muslim world, the US sided with Muslims outraged that publication of the images put press freedom above respect for religion.
"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said. "We all fully recognise and respect freedom of the press and expression, but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable."
He said he had no comment as to why the US chose to pass judgment in a dispute which ostensibly does not involve America.
Major US publications have not republished the cartoons, which include depictions of Muhammad as a terrorist, which believers say are blasphemous.
The leaders of Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia added their voices on Saturday to the condemnation of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammad, whose publication has sparked outrage across the Islamic world.
But there was no repeat of Friday's protests in Jakarta and elsewhere in Asia, and both Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi called on their countries' Muslims to exercise restraint.
"The Indonesian government condemns the printing of the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad. The insult to religious symbols have hurt the feelings of the Muslim," Yudhoyono, leader of the world's most-populous Muslim nation, told a news conference.