In the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, private security guards shot dead two protestors as they tried to set fire to a bank during nationwide anti-Western demonstrations, police said.

The protests in the historic city came hours after hundreds of students stormed the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad, where they were forced back by police using tear gas and water cannon.

Around 600 demonstrators, most of them wearing school uniforms, chanted "Death to Denmark, Death to America" as they pushed past security guards and marched towards the Indian and British embassies.

In Iraq, Basra city council called for the withdrawal of Danish troops until Copenhagen apologizes to all Muslims over the publication of the cartoons.

The council's statement came as thousands demonstrated in front of the headquarters of the British and American consulates in Basra, an area under British military control.

Meanwhile thousands of Kurdish Islamists demonstrated in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil, waving Korans and banners reading "death to the enemies of Islam".

Islamists in Iran hurled Molotov cocktails at the British embassy compound and stoned the German mission in Tehran, where demonstrators chanted "Death to Germany."

The fresh escalation came as the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana took his efforts to defuse the crisis over the publication in Europe of the Danish cartoons to Egypt on the second leg of a fence-mending tour.

After meeting President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Solana told reporters of his "profound desire to recuperate relations between the EU and the Muslim world."

The row erupted following the publication in a Danish newspaper five months ago of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, something which is banned in Islam.

Some of the caricatures portray Mohammed as a terrorist and have since been reprinted in scores of other European papers, sparking an unprecedented outcry in Muslim countries.

Tens of thousands of Muslims across the world have held demonstrations to protest against the cartoons, calling for a boycott of Danish products and demanding their countries sever ties with Copenhagen.

With many of the protests turning violent, at least 11 demonstrators have been killed in Afghanistan, and one each in Somalia and Lebanon.

The cartoons have been reprinted by newspapers in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and other countries in a show of support for the Danish daily and freedom of expression.

The argument has been rejected by most Muslim countries, which have argued that freedom of expression should not be used as a pretext to insult their religion.

Solana said he discussed with Mubarak how to implement the principles of a joint statement issued a week ago by the European Union, United Nations and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Solana said he discussed means to ensure "religious symbols can be protected." Such steps could materialise through various mechanisms, "and maybe inside the new human rights commission created in the UN", he said.

Officials said that a proposal from the 57 governments of the OIC demanded a ban on religious intolerance be part of the bedrock of the planned new human rights commission.

But Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said he had discussed with Solana a project for a resolution with the UN General Assembly preventing publications deemed offensive to Islam and other faiths.

For his part, Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi of Al-Azhar University, the highest seat of learning in Sunni Islam, said such a resolution should be adopted by the Security Council.

"Solana came to present an apology and we thank him for that ... If an apology isn't enough, what else do you want?" Tantawi told reporters.

Solana kicked off his tour of the region on Monday with a visit to Saudi Arabia, where he expressed fears that "people in the Muslim world are starting to feel this is a new September 11 against them."

In Riyadh on Tuesday, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal and his Dutch counterpart Bernard Bot discussed ways of easing the crisis.

"We discussed the European-Arab relationship at length. We hope measures will be taken to end the problem of the cartoons in a way preventing a repeat in the future so as not to mar European-Arab ties," Prince Saud told reporters.