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Iranian authorities have denied claims by opposition websites that at least four people have been killed in clashes between protesters and police in central Tehran.

The websites on Sunday said the victims were killed as police used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse them.

But Azizollah Rajabzadeh, the Tehran police chief, insisted that no protester had been killed.

"So far there have been no reports of killings and no one has been killed up to now," Rajabzadeh was quoted by the Iran Students News Agency as saying.

However, pictures linked on the Twitter microblogging site appeared to show a man with a wound to his head being carried away by opposition protesters.

The clashes in Tehran came as the country's Shia Muslims marked Ashoura, a religious event commemorating the 7th century death of Prophet Muhammad's grandson.

Amateur video footage posted on the internet, said to be from the protest, showed protesters running away from riot police or Basij militias on motorbikes.

Arrests made

Al Jazeera's Mohammad Hassan al-Bahrani, reporting from Tehran, said the police had arrested a number of protesters.

"Hundreds of supporters of the Iranian opposition, mainly of reformist forces, have protested and chanted slogans supporting [Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali] Montazeri and [opposition leader] Mir Hossein Moussavi," he said. "The police had earlier threatened to face any unlicensed gatherings, and this is what r... >>>