Thousands of Indonesians staged protests in several cities Thursday with some burning President George W. Bush’s effigy.

At least 5,000 university students demonstrated in the city of Makassar in South Sulawesi, police said.

They arrived by car, motorbike, truck and bus to hear two hours of speeches in the central square before dispersing peacefully.

At Cirebon in West Java some 2,500 people rallied outside city hall and torched a Bush’s effigy, the state Antara news agency said.

Another 1,000 Islamic boarding school students took to the streets of Semarang city in Central Java.

In Jakarta some 200 people picketed the U.S. embassy and later the United Nations.

They called for the U.N. to bring Bush and allied leaders before a war crimes tribunal.

Some 200 students at Surabaya in East Java pelted the U.S. consulate with rotten eggs and tomatoes after burning an American flag, ElShinta radio said.

Anti-war protests were also reported at Bandung in West Java and Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan.

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-populated nation, has seen daily protests since the attacks began but almost all have been peaceful.

The government has strongly criticized the war as an act of illegal aggression on a fellow Muslim country.

Thousands of Muslims rallied in southern Thailand Thursday to protest the U.S.-led war against Iraq, a provincial governor and rally organizers said.

"I estimate that around 10,000 of them rallied here in front of the provincial hall, and so far the rally has gone smoothly," Pattani governor Somporn Chaibangyang told AFP by telephone from Pattani town.

Somporn said the provincial authority had deployed local police and a limited number of anti-riot police as organizers, Muslim committees from the south's five Muslim-majority provinces, had provided 20 to 30 of their own security guards.

"They are holding a peaceful rally and so far the demonstration has gone without any incident," he pointed out.

The protesters prayed for peace, listened to Muslim scholars denounce the war and collected donations for Iraqi people.

"First we met at the central mosque in town to pray for peace and then we marched a kilometer to rally at the provincial hall," said Asami Tohmena, a member of one of the committees from Pattani.

"We denounced the U.S. killing of Iraqi children, women and the elderly which is against Islamic belief. We denounced the U.S. invasion of Iraq," he said.

Last week some 20,000 Muslims rallied peacefully in the southern city of Songkhla.

Thailand has said it will not engage in military action against Iraq and is remaining neutral, although it is a U.S. ally in the so-called war on terror.