Iran will pursue makers of anti-Islam film: vice-president

DUBAI (REUTERS) - Iran's government will "track down" those responsible for making an amateurish film clip mocking the Prophet Muhammad, a senior official said, Iranian media reported on Monday.

The video made in California and posted on YouTube portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a womaniser and a fool. It has ignited a week of violent protests across the Muslim world.

"The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns...this inappropriate and offensive action," First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said, according to the Mehr news agency.

"Certainly it will search for, track, and pursue this guilty person who...has insulted 1.5 billion Muslims in the world." The Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned to death the Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie in 1989 for his novel The Satanic Verses, saying its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad was blasphemous.