Hundreds of people were arrested in Sweden during disturbances provoked by planned Quran burnings.

More than 40 people have been arrested in Sweden following violent skirmishes between police and protesters outraged about a far-right group's plans to burn copies of the Quran.

Officers fired warning bullets at rioters in Norrkoping on Sunday, injuring three persons, according to police.

A series of protests organized by Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan provoked the violence.

He claims to have already burned a copy of Islam's sacred book and intends to do so once again.

Muslims regard the Quran as God's sacred word, and any intentional damage or display of disrespect for it is considered profoundly disrespectful.

Saudi Arabia has condemned what it called the "deliberate abuse of the holy Quran by some extremists in Sweden and provocation and incitement against Muslims".

Iran and Iraq earlier summoned the Swedish ambassadors to lodge protests.

Sweden's national police chief, Anders Thornberg, said he had never seen such violent riots following Sunday's clashes in Norrkoping, which is about 160km (99 miles) southwest of Stockholm, and nearby Linkoping.

The two cities also witnessed riots on Friday, along with the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby and the western city of Orebro. On Saturday, there was a riot in the southern city of Malmo.

On Monday, police said 26 police officers and 14 members of the public had been injured in the violence and that more than 20 vehicles had been damaged or destroyed.

They estimated that roughly 200 persons were involved in the violence, which they said was orchestrated by criminal gang networks. Police and Sweden's security service, Sapo, are already aware of some of the individuals.

After Rasmus Paludan indicated he wanted to hold a rally in Norrkoping on Sunday, violence erupted. He, on the other hand, never showed up in the city.

Paludan canceled the event because Swedish police "showed that they are utterly unable of defending themselves and me," according to a statement released by his far-right, anti-immigrant Stram Kurs (Hard Line) party.

He had previously been in the central city of Jonkoping on Thursday, but his speeches were drowned out by a priest ringing the bells of a nearby church in protest as he spoke into a megaphone while holding a Quran.

Protests in Sweden have previously turned violent in response to plans by Stram Kurs to burn the Quran. In confrontations in Malmö in 2020, demonstrators set cars on fire and damaged storefronts.

Paludan ran for the Stram Kurs party in the most recent Danish elections when the party earned 1.8 percent of the vote but did not win a seat.

He was sentenced to a month in prison in Denmark in 2020 for a series of crimes, including bigotry.

He intends to run in the Swedish elections in September, but he lacks the signatures required to secure his candidacy.