Many newspapers added to the atmosphere of public gloom, seizing on US President George W. Bush's comment that President Saddam Hussein will be toppled "no matter how long it takes" as an admission the Iraq war may last for many months.

"The anti-war protestors are not disarming," proclaimed the front page headline in the French left-wing daily, L'Humanite, which carried an editorial concluding "the disasters of this war are infinite."

In an opinion column entitled "US, Britain heading for disaster" for the London based Al-Hayat Arabic newsapaper, British Middle East expert Patrick Searle said London and Washington have lost the war both politically and morally.

"The invasion has not filled the hearts (of Iraqis) with joy... the US and British forces are now facing the nightmare of urban warfare."

As public concern over the Iraq war mounts, tens of thousands of people were expected to turn out at a protest in the centre of Berlin Saturday, while a march was planned in Paris to start in front of the US embassy.

Britain's 'Stop the War Coalition' was planning demonstrations for Saturday to protest against the allegedly partial war coverage from state broadcaster the BBC, which it accuses of merely regurgitating the government's line.

Demonstrations were also expected Saturday in several European cities including Rome, Barcelona and Athens, echoing protests by thousands of Muslims Friday across Asia.

Iranian demonstrators threw stones and broke windows of the British embassy in Tehran on Friday during a protest against London's role in the war.

In Istanbul, more than 5,000 demonstrators burnt US, British, Spanish and Israeli flags after Friday prayers.

"We are all Baghdadis", a banner hung from a mosque proclaimed, while the crowd, watched by riot police who did not intervene, shouted: "Hello Baghdad, carry on resisting" and "imperialists, zionists remember September 11."

The governments of Spain and Italy have offered unwavering support to the United States throughout the crisis, but the public in the two countries remain bitterly opposed to a war.

According to a poll Friday, some 76 percent of Italians are opposed to the war and 41 percent believe it will last for months.

"Things are not going as expected, the computer war has partly failed, Saddam Hussein is secure in his redoubt, the Iraqi army has withstood the carpet bombing and has even gone on the counter-attack," the Italian daily La Repubblica concluded.

In Germany, where the government has consistently opposed the Iraq war, newspapers and television have focused on the resistanace put up by the Iraqi military as well as the suffering of civilians.

A columnist for the mass selling Bild daily, Franz Josef Wagner, said the images in the media had upset him so much that he was no longer in favour of the war.

"A week ago I was for the war, now I say: I can't bear to see it any more... blood drips out of every Apache helicopter, I see a torn uniform which once dressed muscle and energy."

Russian newspapers joined the Kremlin, an outspoken voice against the war, in starkly underlining the dangers of the Iraq conflict.

"A new kind of war could begin in Iraq, a war without rules, where the number of troops, 21st century weapons and the Geneva conventions no longer count and where the victory of allied forces is not at all certain," wrote the Kommersant daily.

Peace protestors also gained a high profile Belgian supporter Friday, when Brussels' renowned urinating statue -- the Mannekin Pis -- was dressed up in an anti-war costume with the approval of the city hall.

Britain appears to be the exception to the entrenched public hostility against a war in other European countries, with support to the conflict now ticking up to 59 percent, according to the YouGov poll published in The Daily Telegraph.

But the number who believe the US-led war is going "very well" has fallen nine percentage points from the start of the week to 11 percent.

WAR.WIRE