Iranian soccer players depicted as suicide bombers

A political cartoonist from a leading German daily newspaper has received death threats after publishing a caricature showing the Iranian national soccer team wearing belts of explosives next to four German soldiers.

Caricaturist Klaus Stuttmann said the idea of the cartoon, published in the Friday edition of the Tagesspiegel daily, was to challenge calls from some politicians for soldiers to provide security during this summer’s soccer World Cup in Germany.

But since the cartoon was picked up by an internet site serving Iranian soccer fans over the weekend, Stuttmann has been flooded with hate mail, including death threats, and has received a letter of protest from the Iranian Embassy, the paper said.

The paper blamed the affair on a “misunderstanding” and said it had not intended to offend anyone.

“We regret the Iranian reaction, which we can only explain as due to a lack of understanding of the political debate within Germany,” the paper wrote today.