NASSIRIYAH: Several thousand Muslims in different Middle Eastern countries protested on Friday over the desecration of the Holy Quran at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Violence marred a demonstration in the southern Iraqi town of Nassiriyah, where four protesters and four soldiers were wounded by gunshots.

The protest had been organized by Shias loyal to Moqtada Sadr, who earlier in the week had called on Iraqis to daub US and Israeli flags outside mosques so they could be soiled by the feet of the faithful. A leading figure in Moqtada Sadr’s movement, Shiekh Ahmed Khafaji, accused the security forces of opening fire on the demonstrators, while police accused the ‘militias’ of being the first to do so.

In the occupied Palestinian territories, more than 2,000 demonstrators held aloft Hamas flags as they marched through the West Bank city of Nablus in a protest organized by the radical group. Ranting at the crowd, local Hamas leader Maher al Kharraz called on the United States to ‘apologize and punish those who desecrated the Quran’.

In Iran, the faithful followed a call by the authorities for a protest after Friday prayers. At the end of Friday prayers in Tehran, thousands shouted ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’.—AFP