Nine dead in violent Afghan protests against Koran burning

Feb 22, 2012, 15:55 GMT

Kabul - At least nine protesters died and dozens of others were injured Wednesday in a day of violent protests across Afghanistan sparked by reports that international troops stationed in the country had burned Korans and other religious material.

Taliban insurgents in a statement called on all 'nationalist Afghan Muslims to attack the international forces,' while the Afghan Interior Ministry called for restraint, saying people had the right to demonstrate.

'We are trying to convince the people not to be violent,' Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said.

Afghan police fired shots in the air to disperse crowds chanting 'Death to America' and 'Die Karzai', according to eyewitnesses.

Protests erupted in at least seven cities, including Kabul, where one protester was killed by bullets fired by security guards of the US-controlled Camp Phoenix, the Interior Ministry said.

A Health Ministry official said at least a dozen protesters were treated in Kabul, two of them in a critical condition.

'I can confirm that some opportunists have infiltrated the protests and attacked shops, vandalized private properties and some vehicles,' Hashmat Stanikzai, the spokesman for the Kabul city police said.

Hundreds of locals had gathered outside a housing complex used by foreigners in eastern Kabul. The angry mob, some of whom were armed with iron rods, slings shots and bamboo sticks, also set a truck on fire outside the complex.

Non-government organizations, aid agencies and United Nations officials were on high alert.

The American embassy in Kabul said it had asked staff to suspend all travel in Kabul 'until further notice.'

On Monday, foreign troops 'improperly disposed' of Islamic religious materials, including copies of the Koran, at the Bagram air base, officials from the NATO-led coalition said.

The soldiers had suspected that the texts were being used to carry extremist messages, a senior official said on condition of anonymity.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said its soldiers would now receive training in how to properly handle religious materials.

ISAF Commander John Allen has apologized for the incident, which he said was 'not intentional in any way.'

Some of the worst violence was in the Parwan province, where six people were killed and 13 injured, said Roshana Khalid, spokeswoman for the provincial governor.

'The protesters tried to storm the district headquarters and started attacking the Afghan police with live fire,' she said.

Khalid said the protesters hurled rocks and fired guns at the police. 'They vandalized private and police vehicles,' she said.

Another protester in the eastern city of Jalalabad, 150 kilometers south-east of the capital, was shot dead, an official said. Some 11 fuel tankers were set on fire and seven protesters were injured, the Interior Ministry said.

In Logar province, hundreds of people took to the streets in what had started as a series of peaceful protests.

However, one such protest eventually turned violent, resulting in the death of one person and various injuries during an attack on the district governor's office, Din Mohammad Darwish, the spokesman for the governor of Logar told dpa.

Anti-foreign sentiment has been on the rise in Afghanistan in recent days, a decade after the US-led war against the Taliban insurgency.

A UN survey last month found that 57 per cent of respondents expressed unfavorable views of the international forces. Another survey in November by The Asia Foundation said 63 per cent of Afghans were apprehensive towards the foreign troops.

In April 2011, a protest against the burning of a Koran by an American pastor turned lethal as the demonstrators stormed a United Nations compound in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and killed seven foreigners, including four Nepalese guards.

ASt least 12 people were killed in other cities in violence that went on for at least four days.

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