 Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen described the controversy as Denmark 's worst international relations incident since the Second World War . The incident came at a time of heightened political and social tensions between Muslim majority countries and Western countries , following several , high profile Islamic terrorist attacks in the West — including the September 11 attacks — and Western military interventions in Muslim countries , such as Iraq and Afghanistan . The cartoons and the reaction to them aggravated already @-@ strained relations . The relationship between Muslims in Denmark and the broader society was similarly at a low @-@ point , and the conflict came to symbolise the misunderstandings between the Islamic community and the rest of society . In the years since , terrorist plots claiming to be in retaliation for the cartoons have been planned , and some executed , against targets affiliated with newspapers that published the cartoons or Denmark . 
