AFGHANISTAN: At least four people were killed and dozens injured in a riot in eastern Afghanistan yesterday after police fired on demonstrators protesting about reports that the Koran had been desecrated by US soldiers in Guantanamo Bay.
Offices in Jalalabad were set on fire, shops, consulates and UN buildings attacked by rioters, according to witnesses. Police fired to disperse crowds several times and army helicopters were said to have "buzzed" the crowds. Doctors confirmed that four people had died.
This was the second day of protests in the city sparked by claims in Newsweek magazine that interrogators in Cuba, where hundreds of prisoners captured in Afghanistan are held, kept copies of the Koran in toilets, and "in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet". The US state department said it was investigating the claims.
About 2,000 students, chanting "death to America", protested in the city on Tuesday, demanding an apology from the US. Thousands more turned out yesterday.
The trouble began when a coalition convoy was pelted with stones. "Police opened fire in the air to control the mob, and some people were injured," Jalalabad's police chief, Abdul Rehman, said.
The violence soon became out of control as cars were smashed and set ablaze. The demonstrators also attacked the Indian mission, and the BBC reported that the Pakistani consul's house had been burned down. There were reports that the protests had spread to the city of Khost, with students taking to the streets.
The protesters also denounced Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai, destroying a picture of him and shouting "death to America's allies" and "death to Karzai", as well as "death to Bush". "We don't want America, we don't want Karzai, we want Islam," they shouted. Insulting the Koran or the prophet Muhammad is regarded as blasphemy punishable by death in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The US commands a foreign force in Afghanistan of about 18,000, most of them Americans, fighting Taliban insurgents and hunting Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. - (Guardian Service)
