Lebanese security forces beat back thousands of students yesterday as they marched on the US embassy to protest against last week's air attacks on Iraq, witnesses said. Red Cross and civil defence workers said at least 20 people were injured in the scuffles.
The angry crowd broke through army barriers on the road to the heavily fortified compound on the outskirts of Beirut, shouting anti-US and anti-Israeli slogans.
Troops and riot police used batons and water cannon to try to break up the march. The demonstrators hurled stones at the armed soldiers.
The crowd shouted: "The Iraqi people are not guinea pigs for American weapons. Death to America. With our blood and our souls we will redeem you, Iraq."
US and British aircraft attacked targets near Baghdad last week. Iraq said the strikes killed two civilians and wounded more than 20 others.
In Berlin, senior German Greens distanced themselves from the Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, after the leading member of the party expressed understanding for the US-led raids.
The Environment Minister, Mr Jurgen Trittin, one of three Green cabinet ministers in Mr Gerhard Schroder's coalition government, told reporters in Berlin that party members had expressed to him "amazement to outrage" at Mr Fischer's remarks.
The Green Foreign Minister, under pressure at home over allegations he lied in court about his militant youth, said in Washington on Tuesday that he understood the motives for last Friday's US and British attacks.
"We do not criticise the action our allies had to take under an immensely difficult situation," Mr Fischer said after meeting the US Secretary of State, Gen Colin Powell.
Britain said yesterday the threat to its aircraft from Iraq's military had been reduced by the air-strikes, but there was every chance President Saddam Hussein could rebuild his defences.
"Since then [the air strikes], the level of activity has been very low," said a British defence official.
"Our pilots have not seen any threats, and intelligence indicates that Iraqi defences are operating at a very low level."
He said the strikes, widely condemned internationally, were in response to the threat posed to US and British aircraft patrolling Western-imposed no-fly zones over northern and southern sectors of Iraq.
The British official's comments appeared at odds with the US view.
A Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday that Iraq had resumed firing missiles and air defence guns at aircraft patrolling no-fly zones over southern Iraq on Saturday and Sunday.
The US suspects that Chinese military and civilian workers were helping to bolster Iraq's air defence with Chinese fibre-optic cables in violation of UN sanctions.
Iraq and China have denied any collusion. Beijing has said the allegations were an attempt to divert public attention from the air strikes.