KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait (AFP) — About 500 demonstrators gathered yesterday near the US embassy in Kuwait waving a black Al-Qaeda flag in protest of a film mocking Islam.

President Barack "Obama, we are all Osama," they chanted referring to Al-Qaeda's former leader Osama bin Laden who was killed by US forces last year, an AFP photographer at the site of the demonstration reported.

The protesters gathered around 500 metres away from the US embassy after police forces, heavily deployed in the area, stopped them from reaching the mission.

The demonstrators were joined by five Islamist lawmakers as they called for expelling the US ambassador in the Gulf country.

"The people want to expel the ambassador," they chanted, as one of their banners read: "USA... respect us."

Protests have erupted since Tuesday outside US diplomatic missions in several Arab and Muslim states against a low-budget movie "Innocence of Muslims" made in the United States and deemed offensive to Islam.

The US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans were killed when heavily-armed extremists launched a sustained four-hour attack on the US consulate in Benghazi late Tuesday.

In the Yemeni capital, police yesterday shot dead four protesters and wounded 34 others when they opened fire on a crowd attempting to storm the US embassy.

In the Egyptian capital Cairo, police fired tear gas to disperse the latest protest outside the embassy by stone- and bottle-throwing demonstrators. More than 200 people were injured, the health ministry said.