Roughly 2000 Salafist activists answered a call on Tuesday by Wesam Abdel-Wareth, a Salafist leader and president of Egypt's Hekma television channel, to protest 'Muhammad's Trial' – a US-made film which, critics say, insults Islam's Prophet Mohammed – at 5pm in front of the US embassy in Cairo.

The protest began to deviate from its peaceful nature when some demonstrators began setting off fireworks, the sound of which resembled gunfire. Other demonstrators at the scene chanted "Peaceful, Peaceful," urging their fellow protesters to restrain themselves.

Some protesters managed to scale the embassy walls, remove the American flag and replace it with a black flag on which was written: "There's no God but God and Muhammad is the prophet of God."

At one point, the Egyptian Army intervened, surrounding the embassy grounds in an effort to control the situation.

The controversial film is reportedly being produced by US-based Coptic-Christian Egyptians, including Esmat Zaklama and Morees Sadek, with the support of the Terry Jones Church in the United States.

Various local churches in Egypt have condemned the film in recent days, asserting that those responsible for it were merely carrying out their own agendas and did not represent Egypt's Christian community.