However, turnouts in several major cities were well down on the peaks reached at the peak of the anti-war campaign, indicating the fall of Baghdad to US forces last week has dented the enthusiasm of many people to take to the streets to express their views.

In marches extending from Sydney to Washington, protestors insisted it was still not too late for the US-led coalition to withdraw their troops from Iraq and urged the United States not to consider any further military action elsewhere in the Middle East.

The biggest European demonstrations were in the Italian capital Rome on Saturday, where half a million people turned out, while the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Madrid saw protests of around 200,000 people each.

"The war is over in its most obvious form as a classic means of destruction," said Fausto Bertinotti, Secretary-General of Italy's Refounded Communist Party (PRC).

"But it continues as a low intensity conflict and a strategic hypothesis of world domination by means of preventive war as conceived by (US President George W.) Bush."

In Washington on Saturday, 10,000 people staged a noisy protest through the centre of the city, warning that the toppling of the Iraqi regime was just a start of an "endless war" for world domination.

"We're not there (in Iraq) for democracy," said Edward Wolfe, 75, who travelled from New Jersey for the march. "We're not there for liberation. I honestly think we're there for power."

Even as the first British troops were returning home from the Gulf, 100,000 protesters marched under bright blue skies in London to gather in the capital's Hyde Park.

Leading British socialist film director Ken Loach told the rally: "We have to stop the occupation. This is illegal. This is against international law."

Saturday's march came after more than one million people took to the streets of London on February 15, and the numbers appeared to disappoint organisers' hopes for a turnout of 400,000.

In Berlin, organisers were expecting some 50,000 people to march on Saturday, but police said only 15,000 people staged a procession in front of the German capital's landmark Brandenburg gate.

Peace activists also demonstrated in some 45 cities and towns across Canada on Saturday in actions ranging from a thousands-strong march to army headquarters in Montreal to an arts festival in the largest city, Toronto.

Five demonstrators were arrested when a 2,000-strong crowd of protesters clashed with military police in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Downtown Mexico City was clogged by 10,000 marchers chanting, "We don't want war, we want peace."

In Sydney, about 10,000 anti-war protestors staged a march on Sunday calling for peace in Iraq and the immediate withdrawal of Australian troops from the conflict, while 5,000 people staged a similar rally in Melbourne.

While the Sydney protest did not attract the 100,000-plus crowds seen at rallies before the war began, organisers said the march showed people do not want Australia's troops, fighting alongside their US and British counterparts in the Gulf, "to be part of America's blatant power play".

In Turkey, where polls have shown some 94 percent of people are opposed to the war, three small small-scale demonstrations took place Sunday in the area around the US consulate in the city of Istanbul.

Protestors set US flags alight and shouted "accursed America" and "Bush murderer, out of the Middle East!", but the protests were smaller than previous actions in the country.

A flotilla of around 30 boats led by the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior were seen protesting on Sunday against the war on Iraq, in waters off the eastern Spanish city of Barcelona.

In a less orthodox aquatic protest, divers at the Sea World marine park in Jakarta staged an underwater demonstration on Sunday, unfurling a three metre (10 feet) long banner reading "Stop war, stop violence" inside the aquarium.

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