The jihad call "threatened to fan the flames of religious dissent," the prosecutor office in Moscow said in a statement that it sent to Talgut Tadzhuddin, titular head of Muslims in European Russia.

The official warning to Tadzhuddin was issued after a quick investigation launched by Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov.

A spokesman for Tadzhuddin told AFP on Thursday the jihad proposal "will be discussed by a special congress" in Moscow on Saturday.

Tadzhuddin, who headed a delegation of Muslim clerics who visited Baghdad in the days just before US-led forces launched war on Iraq, said that his was only the second declaration of a holy war in modern Russian history, the first having been declared in 1941 at the time of the German invasion of Russia.

Russia has opposed the US-led war against Iraq but President Vladimir Putin stressed in comments to reporters late Thursday that the dispute should not affect relations between the two sides -- especially those involving trade.

Russia's Muslim community is divided into two groups.

The first is based in the central republic of Bashkortostan and follows Tadzhuddin.

The second, larger group is based in Moscow and follows Ravil Gainutdin whom the Kremlin regards as the country's senior Muslim cleric.

Gainutdin's group Thursday denounced Tadzhuddin's declaration.

SPACE.WIRE