Iraqi protesters breached Sweden's embassy in Baghdad on Thursday, angered by the burning of a Quran outside a Stockholm mosque that sparked condemnation across the Muslim world, AFP reported.
A crowd of supporters of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr stayed inside the compound for about 15 minutes, then left as security forces deployed, an AFP photographer said.
"Our constitution is the Quran," read a message on leaflets carried by the protesters, and a message sprayed on the compound's gate said "Yes, yes to the Quran".
The protest came a day after an Iraqi citizen living in Sweden, 37-year-old Salwan Momika, stomped on the Islamic holy book and set several pages alight in front of the capital's largest mosque.
Swedish police had granted him a permit in line with free-speech protections, but authorities later also said they had opened an investigation over "agitation".
The incident sparked anger across and beyond the Middle East at a time Muslims have observed the Eid al-Adha holiday and the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia was drawing to a close.
Iraq's foreign ministry condemned Sweden's decision to grant an "extremist" permission to burn the Quran, saying such acts "inflame the feelings of Muslims around the world and represent a dangerous provocation."
Saudi Arabia, which hosted around 1.8 million Muslim pilgrims for the hajj that ended on Wednesday, also denounced the Quran burning.
"These hateful and repeated acts cannot be accepted with any justification," its foreign ministry said.
Iran joined in the condemnation, calling the Quran burning "provocative, ill-considered and unacceptable".
"The government and people of the Islamic Republic of Iran... do not tolerate such an insult and strongly condemn it," said foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani, according to AFP.
"The Swedish government is expected to seriously consider the principle of responsibility and accountability in this regard, while preventing the repetition of insulting the holy sanctities," he added.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also denounced Sweden for allowing a protest, saying, "We will eventually teach the arrogant Westerners that insulting Muslims is not freedom of thought,"
"We will show our reaction in the strongest possible terms, until a determined victory against terrorist organizations and Islamophobia is achieved."
Egypt, meanwhile, called the Quran burning a "disgraceful act provoking the feelings of Muslims".
Morocco summoned Sweden's charge d'affaires in Rabat and recalled its ambassador over "these repeated provocations, committed under the complacent gaze of the Swedish government".
Last year, dozens of rioters were arrested after violent clashes broke out in Sweden between police and protesters furious over a far-right group’s plan to burn copies of the Quran.
Past incidents, such as caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and the “Innocence of Muslims” film which depicted the prophet as a buffoon and pedophile, sparked angry protests around the Muslim world.
In 2011, the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine were firebombed after it released an edition that mocked radical Islam.