CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Al-Qaida's most active branch in the Middle East called for more attacks on US embassies yesterday to "set the fires blazing" seeking to co-opt outrage over an anti-Muslim film even as the wave of protests that swept 20 countries this week eased.

Senior Muslim religious authorities issued their strongest pleas yet against resorting to violence, trying to defuse Muslim anger over the film a day after new attacks on US and Western embassies that left at least eight protesters dead.

The top cleric in US ally Saudi Arabia denounced the film but said it can't really hurt Islam, a contrast to protesters' frequently heard cries that the movie amounts to a humiliating attack that requires retaliation. He urged Muslims not to be "dragged by anger" into violence. The head of the Sunni Muslim world's pre-eminent religious institution, Egypt's Al-Azhar, backed peaceful protests but said Muslims should counter the movie by reviving Islam's moderate ideas.

In the Egyptian capital Cairo, where the first protests against the movie that denigrates the Prophet Muhammad erupted, police finally succeeded in clearing away protesters who had been clashing with security forces for days near the US Embassy. Police arrested 220 people and a concrete wall was erected across the road leading to the embassy.

No significant protests were reported in the Mideast yesterday; the only report of violence linked to the film came from Australia, where riot police clashed with about 200 protesters at the US Consulate in Sydney.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, President Barack Obama paid tribute to the four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, who were killed in an armed attack on the US Consulate in the eastern Libyan city on Benghazi this week. He also denounced the anti-US mob protests that followed.

"I have made it clear that the United States has a profound respect for people of all faiths. We stand for religious freedom. And we reject the denigration of religion — including Islam," Obama said.

"Yet there is never any justification for violence. There is no religion that condones the targeting of innocent men and women."

In Afghanistan, the Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack the night before by 20 insurgents on a sprawling British based in southern Afghanistan that killed two US Marines. The Taliban said the attack was to avenge Muslims insulted by the film. It also said the attack came because Britain's Prince Harry is serving at the base, though British officials said he was far from the site of the attack and was unharmed.

Friday's demonstrations spread to more than 20 countries in the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia. While most were peaceful, marches in several places exploded into violence.

In Sudan, crowds torched part of the German Embassy and tried to storm the American Embassy. Protesters climbed the walls into the US Embassy in Tunis, torching cars in the parking lot, trashing the entrance building and setting fire to a gym and a neighbouring American school.

Four demonstrators were killed in Tunisia, two in Sudan, one in Lebanon and one in Egypt — the first Egyptian protester to die in clashes with police since Islamist President Mohammed Morsi took up his post this summer. On Thursday, four Yemeni protesters were killed in protests that turned violent at the US Embassy in Sanaa.