Two policemen were killed and more than 30 people wounded in the southern city of Kandahar today during the third day of violent protests across Afghanistan against the burning of a Koran by a radical fundamentalist US pastor, officials said.
Violence at earlier demonstrations claimed more than 20 lives. Ten people were killed and more than 80 wounded in Kandahar yesterday.
Seven foreign UN staff and five Afghan protesters were killed on Friday after demonstrators overran an office in normally peaceful Mazar-i-Sharif city in the north.
Today, hundreds of people marched through Kandahar, towards another UN office, on the second day of protests in the city after US preacher Terry Jones had supervised the burning of a copy of the Koran in front of about 50 people at a church in Florida on March 20th.
"The information I have is that two policemen have been killed and 20 others, including police, protesters and citizens, have been wounded," Ahmad Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial council, said.
Another 14 people, including two children, were wounded when protesters seized a gas canister taken from a shop and set it on fire, causing an explosion, Zalmay Ayoubi, the spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor said.
There were also peaceful demonstrations in Kabul, western Herat city, Jalalabad city in the east and northern Tahar province, and it initially appeared that today's march in Kandahar would also finish without incident.
The governor had promised a strong police presence and many of the morning's demonstrators had drifted away before violence broke out in the early afternoon.
Afghan and foreign officials said insurgent infiltrators had sparked the killings, although a Taliban spokesman said they were driven by spontaneous emotion.
Afghan president Hamid Karzai called on Congress to condemn the burning of the Koran and prevent it from happening again.
Mr Karzai made the request at a meeting with US ambassador Karl Eikenberry and Gen David Petraeus, the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, the presidential palace said in a statement.
"The American Congress and Senate must condemn this in clear words, show their stance, and prevent such incidents from happening again," the statement said.
Mr Eikenberry read to Mr Karzai from US president Barack Obama's earlier condemnation of the Koran burning, the statement said.
Mr Obama denounced the act of burning a Koran but did not mention Rev Jones by name.
Today Gen Petraeus joined the condemnation being voiced by many other political and religious leaders, urging Afghans to understand only a small number of people had been disrespectful to the Koran and Islam.
"We condemn, in particular, the action of an individual in the US who recently burned the Holy Koran," Gen Petraeus said in a statement, which was also signed by Nato's senior civilian representative, ambassador Mark Sedwill.
"We also offer condolences to the families of all those injured and killed in violence which occurred in the wake of the burning of the Holy Koran," he said.
Around 1,000 people blocked the main highway from Kabul to Jalalabad earlier today and burned US flags.
"We want the preacher who burnt the holy Koran to get a severe punishment," said 20-year-old protester Jalil Ahmad.
Reuters