Lebanese demonstrators have set on fire the building housing the Danish consulate in Beirut to protest against the publication by European newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad ().

Reuters reported that a cloud of black smoke was billowing from the site on Sunday, while AFP said angry crowds rampaged through a Christian neighbourhood of Beirut.

Lebanese security forces earlier fired tear gas at the crowd of about 20,000 marching towards the Danish mission.

The Danish government on Sunday called on its nationals to leave Lebanon, saying they "should remain indoors until the travel possibilities have been clarified".
Twenty-eight people were wounded in the Beirut clashes, some were treated for inhaling teargas and others had sustained fractures, a civil defence medic said.

The protesters also attacked property and shops in Ashrafiyeh district, throwing stones, breaking windows and overturning cars, an AFP journalist said.

There were chaotic scenes as hundreds as protesters marched through the area, knocking down barricades.

Uproar over the cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper and were then reprinted in a number of other European countries, has swept across the Muslim world.

Aljazeera's correspondent in Beirut, Abbas Nasir, reported that Lebanese police retreated in the face of the crowd.

The police fired heavily in the air to disperse protesters who nevertheless continued to advance towards the Danish consulate.  

Policemen fired tear gas in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent demonstrators from assembling in front of the building, Nasir said.

At around 11am local time (0900 GMT) on Sunday, demonstrators amassed in Ashrafiyeh, where the Danish consulate is located, throwing rocks and breaking windows.

The Lebanese press said that Danish diplomats had evacuated the premises on Saturday night after a similar protest in neighbouring Syria, in which mobs attacked the buildings housing the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus.

As demonstrators shouted and ran through the streets of east Beirut's Christian sector, cars were overturned and their windows smashed and some people picked up stones from the street and hurled them at nearby buildings.

Journalists on the scene estimated that several thousand people were among the angry crowds, many of whom turned out in response to a call by a group called the National Movemment for the Defence of the Prophet Muhammad ().

Witnesses told Reuters that security forces fired shots in the air and used water cannon on Sunday to disperse the protesters, who burned two civil defence vehicles, a police car and an army jeep.

The protesters threw stones at the security forces. A number of people fainted because of the tear gas.

Security forces sealed all roads leading to the embassy in the eastern part of the Lebanese capital.

Gunfire could also be heard and witnesses said troops were firing in the air to keep the protesters away.

Muslim clerics were seen among the protesters.

The violent protest comes a day after thousands of protesters in neighbouring Syria set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in the most violent in days of furious protests by Muslims in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

PHOTO CAPTION

Smoke rises from the Danish consulate after being set on fire by demonstrators in Beirut February 5, 2006. (REUTERS)