Hundreds of Afghans kept up the angry demonstrations, some apparently unaware that pastor Terry Jones had dropped his plans. Two protesters were shot and killed in the eastern province of Logar, a district official said, taking the death toll since last Friday to three.

The furor over Jones's plan overshadowed the lead-up to commemorations of the September 11 hijacked airliner attacks on the United States.

Other parts of the Muslim world saw protests last week but Sunday's violence was confined to Afghanistan, six days before a parliamentary election, which the Taliban has vowed to disrupt.

The United Nations' top diplomat in Afghanistan has said the protests risk delaying the election and warned that the Taliban, which has vowed to continue fighting until nearly 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan have left, could try to exploit popular anger over the issue.

Poor security is already a major concern ahead of the vote, with more than 1,000 polling centers out of a planned 6,835 to remain closed.

On Sunday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said a Taliban commander who had been plotting rocket attacks on polling stations had been killed in eastern Nangarghar a day earlier.

The election is seen as a key test of stability in Afghanistan before President Barack Obama conducts a strategy review of the increasingly unpopular war in December.

Angry protesters chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Christians" clashed with security forces in Logar, south of the capital, on Sunday.

Seven demonstrators were wounded, one seriously, when Afghan security forces opened fire to disperse hundreds of protesters marching to Pul-e-Alam, the capital of Logar, officials said.

Mohammad Rahim Amin, chief of Baraki Barak district just west of Pul-e-Alam, said two of the wounded died later in hospital.

The protesters threatened to attack foreign military bases.

"The governor must give us an assurance that the church is not going to burn the Koran, otherwise we will attack foreign troop bases in our thousands," protester Mohammad Yahya said.

Some of the protesters seemed not to know that Jones had called off his plan. Many in impoverished Afghanistan have limited access to news outlets and the Internet.

Major Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for ISAF, said it was aware of more protests in Logar on Sunday and estimated the crowd at about 100, some wielding sticks and throwing stones.

Four protesters were wounded in Logar on Saturday, a day after one was shot dead when an angry crowd attacked a German-run base in the northeast, one of many protests across the country.

Protests had eased by later on Sunday.