June 2 (Bloomberg) -- A car bomb outside Denmark's embassy in Pakistan killed at least nine people, less than two months after al-Qaeda's deputy leader called for attacks on Danish targets.

Danish and Pakistani officials didn't immediately say who exploded the bomb today, which crushed part of the embassy's perimeter wall and pockmarked its facade with shrapnel. The attack killed a Brazilian woman working at the embassy and injured 25 people in the neighborhood, officials told reporters.

A Danish citizen of Pakistani origin and two Pakistani employees also were killed in the attack, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the Danish Foreign Ministry. ``At least'' nine people died, AFP reported, without saying where it got the information.

The bombing, the first at a diplomatic mission in Pakistan in more than two years, came six weeks after al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to ``cause damage to Denmark in order to show support for our prophet.'' He was responding to the publication by Danish newspapers of cartoons lampooning the founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, in 2005 and again in February.

The first publication of the caricatures ignited protest in Pakistan, which is more than 90 percent Muslim, and elsewhere across the Islamic world. In February, after Danish officials reported a suspected murder plot against one of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, Danish papers reprinted his image of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

Norway Closes Embassy

Norway, which al-Zawahiri also mentioned in his appeal, said today it had closed its embassy in Islamabad, located about a block from the blast site.

The bombing comes as Pakistan has been trying to negotiate peace deals with Taliban guerrillas who have consolidated their grip on several rural regions near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

The attack continues violence in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, following a week-long battle in July, when army troops seized the city's Red Mosque from armed Islamic militants.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said al-Qaeda and the Taliban militant movement, based in Pakistan and Afghanistan, were likely to be behind today's attack. One embassy employee was killed and three injured, he said.

`Attack Against Denmark'

The bomb is ``an attack against Denmark and the values we stand for,'' Danish Deputy Prime Minister Bendt Bendtsen told Denmark's TV2 television. While Denmark's government conceded that the cartoons' publication had offended many Muslims, it said it would not censor freedom of expression.

Bendtsen and other Danish officials praised Pakistan's role in responding to the bombing. Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said ``the devastating attack'' had shamed the country.

An hour after the blast, police swarmed around the site, climbing over crushed vehicles and an uprooted tree, collecting pieces of the destroyed car. Pakistani Interior Secretary Kamal Shah told reporters it was uncertain whether the bomb had been detonated by a suicide attacker, or was remote-controlled.

The bomb erupted shortly after 1 p.m. local time, shattering the calm of one of Islamabad's wealthiest neighborhoods. The blast wave blew in windows and doors of the Ukrainian and Norwegian embassies, the Brazilian ambassador's residence and private villas for blocks around.

``I was working on my laptop when I heard a huge roar,'' said Salim Salahuddin, a public relations specialist who lives a block from the Danish Embassy. From the windows, ``all the glass flew in like bullets,'' slashing his brother's arms and legs, he said.

Brazilian Woman Killed

Within a few minutes, cars from the neighborhood's various embassies ``were zooming down the streets to get away,'' he said. His family and others in the neighborhood bundled their injured into cars and sped toward hospitals.

The bomb carved a crater in the middle of the narrow street outside the Danish embassy's gate, and hurled the car's engine into a neighbor's driveway about 30 yards (27 meters) away. It ripped the Danish and European flags from their poles and left them hanging, torn, on a balcony.

The embassy employee killed was a Brazilian woman, Brazilian Vice-Consul Carlos Armando said. Five of the dead were Pakistanis, the Interior Ministry said.

Denmark's Security Intelligence Service, PET, said April 10 that the February reprint of Westergaard's cartoon had ``led to renewed and negative attention'' toward Denmark in ``a number of countries.'' That same day, Denmark's Foreign Ministry said it ``strongly advises'' its citizens in Pakistan to avoid demonstrations and large crowds, because ``militant extremists'' may target Danes as a result of the Muhammad cartoons.

Zawahiri Appeal

``There are fanatics and terrorists out there and we do what we can to protect ourselves from them,'' Moeller told Denmark's TV2 News. ``There's nothing that indicates that our security measures were inadequate. The Pakistanis have also done more to raise security levels, but a terrorist can slip through all the same.''

Al-Zawahiri's appeal for attacks on Denmark came in his responses, posted on April 17, to questions submitted to Islamic militant websites, according to the NEFA Foundation, a U.S.-based non-profit group that analyzes terrorist threats and that translated his comments.

Asked in the posting why al-Qaeda has threatened Scandinavian countries, al-Zawahiri said that ``Denmark keeps on dishonoring the Prophet.'' He added: ``We have threatened Norway and every other country that participated in the war against the Muslims.'' Norway has contributed as many as 700 troops to the NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan.

The bomb attack was the first in Islamabad since March 15, when a device exploded in an Italian restaurant, killing one foreigner and injuring 11 other people. The previous attack on a diplomatic mission in Pakistan, the bombing of the U.S. Consulate in Karachi in March 2006, killed an American diplomat, David Foy.

To contact the reporters on this story: James Rupert in Islamabad at jrupert3@bloomberg.net; Khalid Qayum in Islamabad at kqayum@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 2, 2008 14:54 EDT