President Bush says he saw his enemy's "sole" during a bizarre attack by an Iraqi journalist who hurled a pair of shoes at him on a farewell visit to Baghdad.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, a TV reporter, took off and flung his shoes at Mr Bush during a press conference in the Green Zone yesterday, shouting in Arabic as he did so: "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

The shoes narrowly missed the President's head as he stood behind a podium with Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, before clattering into a wall behind the two men.

Throwing shoes is particularly insulting in the Middle East - a crowd of Iraqis used their shoes to whack a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein after the 2003 invasion - and Mr al-Zaidi was today hailed as a hero across the region while colleagues called for his release.

The incident overshadowed Mr Bush's fourth and final visit to Iraq and the signature of a landmark accord setting a three-year timetable for the withdrawal of US forces - but the US President kept his composure, insisting that "he didn't feel the least threatened by it".

Mr al-Zaidi was quickly overpowered and bundled from the room after the attack. An Iraqi official said today that he was still being held and questioned at Mr al-Maliki's headquarters. His shoes, the official said, were being held as evidence.

His television station, Al-Baghdadia, repeatedly aired pleas for his release today while showing footage of explosions and playing background music that denounced the US presence in Iraq.

“We have all been mobilised to work on releasing him, and all the organisations around the world are with us,” said Abdel-Hameed al-Sayeh, the manager of the Cairo-based station. “This whole thing is putting the Iraqis and the Americans to a test. Are they going to release him or try him?”

The Al-Jazeera television station repeatedly aired video of the incident and interviewed Saddam's chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi, who offered to defend Mr al-Zaidi. Thousands demonstrated in his support in Sadr City, the sprawling Shia Muslim slums of Baghdad.

Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the influential London-based newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, wrote on the newspaper’s website that the incident was “a proper goodbye for a war criminal”.

Abdel-Sattar Qassem, a political science professor at An Najah University in the West Bank town of Nablus, added: “This great Arab shoe sums up the history of the criminal Bush, who is responsible for the loss of lives of hundreds of thousands of Islamic sons and who remained arrogant, spiteful and mean-spirited until the last moment of his term.”

After drily informing reporters in Baghdad yesterday that the missiles had been size 10s, Mr Bush was joking again as he gave an impromptu press conference aboard Air Force One headed for Afghanistan.

"I didn't know what the guy said, but I saw his sole," he said.

"I don't think you can take one guy throwing shoes and say this represents a broad movement in Iraq. You can try to do that if you want to. I don't think it would be accurate."

He added: "I'm going to be thinking of shoe jokes for a long time. I haven't heard any good ones yet."

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