A Palestinian boy holds the Quran during an anti-US protest at the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza Strip on Friday. (Reuters)

Kabul, May 13 (Reuters): Angry protests raged across the Muslim world from Gaza to Indonesia today over a report US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Quran, with calls for retaliation and a rising death toll.

Governments demanded investigations and thousands took to the streets in outrage over a Newsweek magazine report that interrogators at a US military prison in Cuba had put the Muslim holy book on toilets, in at least one case flushing it down.

In Afghanistan, at least nine people were killed in protests over the report on Friday, bringing the country’s death toll to 16 this week in its worst anti-American demonstrations since the fall of the Taliban.

Hundreds of people held a peaceful protest in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

In Gaza, several thousand Palestinians marched through a refugee camp in a protest organised by the militant group Hamas. Several hundred Palestinians also marched in the West Bank city of Hebron.

“The Holy Quran was defiled by the dirtiest of hands, by American hands,” a protester shouted at the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, where US and Israeli flags were also burned.

Muslims consider the Quran the literal word of God, treating each book with deep reverence, and the episode has embarrassed the US, which has sought closer ties with Muslim allies as it wages its war on terrorism.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, desecration of the Quran is punishable by death.

The US’ reputation had already been damaged by photographs released last year of physical and sexual abuse of Muslim prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Washington’s allies demanded action and an investigation. Indonesia said those responsible must receive a “deserved punishment” for their “immoral action”. Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, said it was following the issue with “deep indignation”.

Sentiments ran higher in the streets.

“Demonstrations serve no purpose, we should do something practical. I am ready to blow myself up for the sake of my religion to embrace martyrdom,” said Mohammad Ghafoor, 18, a student protesting in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Today, Islamic clerics in Afghanistan told worshippers at weekly prayers that protests over the reported desecration of the holy book were justified. They urged Muslims to shun violence, but their words fell on deaf ears as clashes erupted in different parts of the country.