Muslim fury at a report that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay stuffed a Koran down a lavatory at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp brought more violent anti-American protests today in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Islamic world.

Seven people were shot dead in clashes with police around Afghanistan in the biggest outpouring of anti-American sentiment since the fall of the Taleban. Several thousand Palestinian protesters marched through a Gaza City refugee camp and there were rowdy protests as far away as Indonesia.

The demonstrations started in Afghanistan on Tuesday when students in the eastern city of Jalalabad burnt an effigy of President Bush after a May 9 Newsweek report that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay camp on Cuba had descecrated the Koran and in one case "flushed a holy book down the toilet".

American officials, including Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, have promised to investigate their grievances, saying disrespect for the Koran would never be tolerated. "Respect for religious freedom for all individuals is one of the founding principles of the United States," Dr Rice told a Senate committee in Washington yesterday.

Seven people had already been killed in the protests so far and a further seven were reported killed today.

In the Baharak district of Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan province, three men died when police opened fire to control hundreds of protesters who shouted "Death to America!" and attacked the offices of two relief groups, said Abdul Majid, the provincial governor. Another 22 people were hurt, including three police officers.

Another man died in the far northwest when police opened fire during a demonstration in Qala-e-Naw, capital of Badghis province, police said.

And Reuters reported that four policemen and national army soldiers were killed in a gun battle with protesters in Ghazni province, 90 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul.

At the Pentagon, General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said American commanders in Afghanistan believe that local political factions - and not the alleged desecration - were driving the violence. General Myers said the military is investigating the allegation but so far it is unconfirmed.

The police operation at the first major protest in Jalalabad that left four people dead has enflamed passions further. Demonstrations, often leading to violence, have taken place in at least ten towns and cities.

Most of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims arrested during the American-led 'war on terror' in Afghanistan, where insults to the Koran are regarded as blasphemy and punishable by death.

The Newsweek report has also stirred anger in Pakistan, and the powerful opposition Islamic coalition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal appealed for Muslims to protest in major cities after Friday prayers. But in the main cities of Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan and Karachi no more than a few hundred turned out, despite fiery rhetoric from some preachers.

Pakistan had stepped up security ahead of the rallies, and the United Nations closed its offices across the country early as a precaution. There were no reports of violence, although in Quetta, protesters burned an effigy of the United States President.

"We think President George Bush has started a crusade war by insulting Koran," the hardline cleric Anwar ul-Haq told a congregation there. He warned that people would be forced to take "extreme steps against American citizens in the world" if any Guantanamo Bay-like incident was repeated in the future.

But Sadique Bajrani, a cleric in Karachi, urged people to remain peaceful. "Americans did a bad thing, but you should not hurt anyone while protesting against America," he said.

During a visit to Australia, Khursheed Kasuri, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, called the alleged slur against Islam’s holy book "debased, inhuman (and) depraved" and said that the Bush administration should take "very strong action" to investigate the incident and punish those responsible.

About 50 people also protested outside three hotels in the eastern Indonesian city of Makassar, demanding they hand over any Americans inside. The demonstrators were blocked from entering the hotels, witnesses said.

Meanwhile, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamic group, claimed the alleged desecration was "a link in the series of aggressions on the Islamic sanctities" and warned the United States that "the repercussions will be grave".

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