Security guards shot dead two men, police used teargas on students in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave, and protesters attacked Western businesses today in Pakistan protests over the Muhammad cartoons.
In Iran, scores of demonstrators hurled petrol bombs at the British embassy in renewed protests against the cartoons and Western opposition to Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
The dispute should not be allowed to divide Europe and the Muslim world, the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in Cairo.
He is touring Muslim states to try to calm anger over the cartoons, published by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten last September and reprinted in many European countries in a debate about the rights and restrictions of free speech.
Pakistan 's Interior Minister said guards at a bank that was attacked by protesters in the eastern city of Lahore shot dead two men.
Police fired into the air and baton-charged protesters who set vehicles alight and ransacked outlets of international fast food companies, including McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut, and the Norwegian mobile phone firm Telenor, witnesses said.
Protesters also hurled stones at a Holiday Inn hotel and Western-owned filling stations. About 2,000 people staged a sit-in near the provincial assembly.
In Islamabad, police fired tear gas to drive out about 400 students who stormed the heavily-guarded diplomatic enclave. The protesters reached the Indian High Commission, which is next to the British High Commission, before being driven back.
Demonstrators smashed windows of cars and a branch of British bank Standard Chartered and shouted "Death to Denmark" and "Expel European ambassadors".
The protests were the most serious in Pakistan , the second-most populous Muslim nation, since the cartoons row erupted.
The diplomatic enclave is home to many European embassies and that of the United States, but not that of Denmark. It is barricaded and guarded by armed police. Extra police have been posted on roads around embassies and diplomatic residences.
Protesters tore down portraits of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and about 3,000 people shouted anti-American slogans outside parliament.
The authorities said security forces were under orders to protect vital installations and foreign assets.
They accused organisers of the Lahore protests of not keeping their word to remain peaceful and expressed concern about plans for a general strike Islamists have called for March 3rd.