The US called for calm in Afghanistan while it investigates allegations that US anti-terrorism interrogators desecrated Islam's holy book, triggering deadly protests across the country.
Protesters threw rocks and police shot back Friday as the anti-US protests spread to more Afghan cities, threatening a security crisis for the government of President Hamid Karzai.
The protests began after Newsweek magazine reported in its May 9 edition that interrogators at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed Korans in washrooms to unsettle suspects, and "flushed a holy book down the toilet."
Many of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims arrested during the US-led war against the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan.
Afghan officials suggested opponents of the country's painstaking democratic rebirth were stirring up the trouble, while the US government appealed for calm and stressed that the desecration charge was being investigated by the Pentagon.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that if the allegations "are proven true, we will take appropriate action. Respect for the religious freedom for all individuals is one of the founding principles of the United States."
In neighboring Pakistan, street protests fizzled despite tough rhetoric from hard-line preachers, while the rest of the Muslim world was mostly quiet, with only small rallies at a Palestinian refugee camp and in Indonesia.
Friday's deaths -- reported in four Afghan towns and cities -- brought to 15 the number of people killed in the biggest outpouring of anti-American sentiment since a US-led military campaign drove the Taliban regime from power at the end of 2001.
Afghan officials said some of the protesters chanting anti-American slogans and stoning the offices of international relief groups are being encouraged by factions that have resisted UN disarmament drives or been sidelined by Karzai's government.
"This is organized by particular groups who are the enemies of Afghanistan," Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal told reporters. "They are trying to show that the situation -- that security -- is not good."
Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, an Islamic cleric and close ally of Karzai, told worshippers in Kabul's main mosque Friday that the violence was against Islam.
"The ones who are here to help us and help our government, until they leave our country, we should respect them," Mujaddedi said.
He claimed "foreign hands" were stirring the violence -- words often used to accuse Pakistan, where leaders of the Taliban and the Hizb-e-Islami group led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are believed to find refuge.
Shooting broke out in the southeastern city of Ghazni as protesters swarmed toward a police station and the governor's residence after Friday prayers, chanting "Death to America" and pelting the buildings with rocks, witnesses said.
Shafiqullah Shafaq, a doctor at the city's hospital, told reporters that two civilians and a police officer were fatally shot and 21 people were wounded, including the provincial police chief.
In northeastern Badakhshan province, three men died when police opened fire trying to control hundreds of protesters in Baharak district, Governor Abdul Majid said. Twenty-two people were reported hurt, including three police officers.
Majid said the crowd set fire to the offices of a British aid group and Focus, a reconstruction agency financed by the Aga Khan Foundation, a fund set up by the spiritual leader of the world's 20 million Ismaili Muslims.
Officials said a protester was killed when police fired during a riot after prayers in the northwestern town of Qala-e-Naw and another died from a gunshot wound in Gardez, near the Pakistani border.
Protests erupted Tuesday in the eastern city of Jalalabad, and the killing of four rioters by police further enflamed passions. Demonstrations -- many of them violent -- have occurred in at least 12 Afghan towns and cities.
Saudi Arabia joined fellow US ally Pakistan in registering dismay over the allegations, as did the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, a banned militant religious movement.
But aside from Afghans, few in Muslim lands have taken to the streets.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
RSS