The prime minister says he regrets the printing of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, amid warnings that their publication could put Canadian troops in stationed abroad at greater peril.

"Free speech is a right that all Canadians enjoy; Canadians also have the right to voice their opinion on the free speech of others," Stephen Harper said in a written statement, his first comments on the incendiary cartoons since the furor erupted.

"I regret the publication of this material in several media outlets. While we understand this issue is divisive, our government wishes that people be respectful of the beliefs of others.

"I commend the Canadian Muslim community for voicing its opinion peacefully, respectfully and democratically."

On Tuesday, Lt.-Col. Tom Doucette told CTV News that the decision of Western Standard, a Calgary-based magazine, to reprint the cartoons could endanger Canadian troops serving in Afghanistan.

"What it might do is slow things down, i.e., in concentrated centres," Doucette told CTV in Kandahar. "If we get crowds gathering, then we will try to avoid that."

His comments bolstered a similar warning from Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor.

"It doesn't help. Radicals in Syria and Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq, they get people roused up because their religion's being offended," O'Connor said, the Ottawa Citizen reported Tuesday. "We don't need any more risk in the area than we have."

A Canadian Muslim leader also warned of the new peril to the troops at a news conference on Tuesday.

"I think the fact that people choose to reprint the cartoons could put our troops in danger," Riad Saloojee, of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, told an Ottawa news conference.

"That's, I think, one of the reasons why major (Canadian) media outlets have been responsible and chosen not to do that."

In response to such opinions, Levant said: "I bet the men and women in the armed forces are there to begin with because they love Canadian values and freedoms, but you know what? We have to remember that terrorists are what kill troops -- not cartoons."

The latest issue of Western Standard magazine hit newsstands in some parts of the country on Monday, and will be readily available across Canada in the next 10 days.

While some outlets have sold out of the issue, bookstore chains such as Indigo Books and Music Inc. and the smaller chain of independent bookstores McNally Robinson have decided against selling the publication.

"I respect the choice of our distributors to decide whether or not to put it on the newsstands," the magazine's publisher Ezra Levant told CTV Calgary. "That's part of freedom of speech too."

Debate heats up

Meanwhile, the national leader of the Canadian Islamic Congress wants the publication charged with distributing hate literature.

The president of the Islamic congress, Mohamed Elmasry, said Levant's argument that "freedom of speech trumps political correctness" doesn't hold water.

"We believe the Western Standard actually did transgress many limits. Although the Canadian Islamic Congress and the Canadian Jewish Congress did appeal to the magazine not to republish these offending cartoons they did go ahead and do it," Elmasry said on CTV.

He said the cartoons propagate a negative stereotype of Muslims, and the decision to publish them goes against the will of the Canadian people and "actually affects the well being of minorities in this country."

Elmasry also said the Muslim people have been unfairly targeted, and said he believes the magazine would have acted differently if the cartoons were anti-Semitic.

"I'm sure the Western Standard would not be able to publish and hide behind free press, publishing Holocaust denials or anti-Semitic cartoons, so we have here a big problem," Elmasry said.

The caricatures originally appeared in a Danish newspaper almost six months ago. In January they were reprinted by several European newspapers, prompting rioting in the Middle East and controversy around the world.

Most Canadian publications have chosen not to print the cartoons, opting instead to describe the images.

Levant, who also appeared on CTV, was bluntly unapologetic about his decision to publish the cartoons.

"I would say our magazine would publish an anti-Semitic or Holocaust denying cartoon if it meant Jews around the world were rioting because of it and burning embassies because of a cartoon. We would want to show our readers what all the fuss was about," he said.

He added: "It's a real news story, and if someone would be offended, well it's a historical artifact, we're going to show it."

Levant, who is Jewish, had some harsh words for Elmasry. He described him as an "idiot" several times, and said he has no moral high ground to lecture him on journalistic integrity.

Levant pointed to controversial comments Elmasry made in October, 2004, when he said all Jews over the age of 18 are fair targets for suicide bombers. Elmasry made the comments on The Michael Coren Show, an Ontario program that runs on Burlington's Crossroads Television System.

Elmasry later repeated the comments in a Globe and Mail interview, but eventually claimed he was expressing a widely-held Palestinian view, not his own personal belief.

The comments sparked outrage at the time, and police launched a probe to determine whether the comments constituted a hate crime.

"He should be lucky we have freedom of speech in Canada because if we were in a country that didn't, he'd be in jail," said Levant.

With a report from CTV's David Akin and CTV Calgary's Bill McFarlane