Protests Spread Over Film Mocking Mohammed

Hundreds of protesters have clashed with police guarding the US embassy in Cairo as anger against an anti-Muslim film spreads across the Middle East.

Egypt's ruling Muslim Brotherhood has now withdrawn its call for a million-man march in the Egyptian capital after Friday prayers.

The anger has been sparked by a US-made video depicting the Prophet Mohammed having sex, calling for massacres, and as a homosexual.

Protesters attacked a 15ft-high concrete wall built by police across the road to the fortified US compound near Tahrir Square. TV pictures showed demonstrators throwing stones, and police throwing stones back.

In Yemen, security forces clashed with hundreds of protesters near the US embassy in Sanaa, a day after demonstrators stormed the compound. AFP news service said police had opened fire on the crowds, but there was no word on injuries.

Local media said US marines had flown into Sanaa's international airport on Thursday to bolster the embassy's security.

At least one person died and 15 were injured during Thursday's demonstration. Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi condemned the attack.

In Bangladesh, some 10,000 protesters burned American and Israeli flags and chanted "God is Great" and "Smash the black hands of Jews" as they tried to march to the US embassy in the capital Dhaka.

They were stopped by hundreds of armed police and armoured personnel carriers.

In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, 250 riot police guarded the US embassy in Jakarta as some 450 people protested outside. Some carried banners reading: "We condemn the insult against Allah's messenger" and "There is no God but Allah".

Demonstrations are also due to take place in Sudan, after state-backed Islamic scholars urged people to "defend Prophet Mohammed".

Salah el Din Awad, general secretary of the scholars' group in Khartoum state, said: "We have 5,000 mosques in Khartoum with two million people attending Friday prayers. We will all go out to defend Prophet Mohammed. We will do this peacefully but with strength."

Religious clerics in Pakistan joined calls for a day of protests, while further demonstrations are likely to continue in countries including Kuwait, Tunisia, and Morocco.

Britain's Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has raised concerns about the potential for the unrest to spread to Afghanistan. In a newspaper interview, he said security is being boosted around British bases.

The violence followed Tuesday night's storming of the US Consulate and a safe house in Benghazi, Libya, in which the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other American officials were killed.

President Barack Obama said the perpetrators would be tracked down and ordered two destroyers to head to the Libyan coast.

Eastern Libya's deputy interior minister, Wanis el Sharef, said the film protests were a cover for a violent assault planned to coincide with the 11th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks.