Date Posted: Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Four people died in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, as protestors demonstrated in reaction to reports that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Qur'an.

KABUL, May 11 (MASNET & News Agencies) - Afghan troops were deployed on the streets of an eastern city after four people died and scores were injured in riots sparked by reports that U.S. interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center had desecrated the Qur’an.

Police in Jalalabad, 80 miles east of the capital, opened fire Wednesday to break up an enraged mob of several thousand people that torched the governor's house, the Pakistani consulate and several foreign aid agencies, police and witnesses told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

As black smoke rose over the city, the crowd went on the rampage, chanting slogans including "Death to America" as well as burning the Stars and Stripes and effigies of U.S. President George W. Bush, and stoning a passing convoy of U.S. soldiers, witnesses said.

The protesters also denounced Afghan President Hamid Karzai, destroying a big portrait 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.

It was the biggest outpouring of anti-American sentiment since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, reports the Associated Press (AP).

Karzai said the riots showed the "inability" of the war-shattered country's institutions to deal with such situations, but added that the demonstrations at least meant that democracy was flourishing.

"Afghanistan's institutions, the police, the army, are not ready to handle protest and demos," Karzai said at NATO headquarters during an official visit to Brussels. "That must be made better."

The State Department said late Tuesday the Pentagon was investigating a report in Newsweek magazine that interrogators in Guantanamo, Cuba, kept copies of the Qur’an in toilets to annoy prisoners, saying the allegations of desecration were "certainly serious and it would be important to have them be looked into."

"Obviously, the destruction of any kind of holy book, whether it's a Bible or a Qur’an or any other document like that, is something that's reprehensible and not in keeping with U.S. policies and practices," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said, reports the AP.

Newsweek said in a recent edition that investigators probing abuses at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay had discovered that interrogators "had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet."

Muslims consider the Qur’an the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence, reports Reuters.

On Tuesday, about 2,000 student protestors demanded an apology and punishment for those involved in the reported Guantanamo incident, reports Reuters.

The unrest began on Wednesday as a peaceful protest by medical university students, but numbers swelled to between 5,000 and 10,000 and the demonstration descended into violence, witnesses and a local police source told AFP.

Witnesses said students also demanded the release of all prisoners from Guantanamo, and that "American troops don't stay in Afghanistan forever."

The United States, commanding a foreign force in Afghanistan of about 18,300, most of them American, fighting Taliban insurgents and hunting Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11 attacks, said it was not involved.

U.S. forces stationed in Jalalabad initially shot rounds into the air but were called back to base when the trouble began, leaving Afghan authorities to handle it, at their request, a U.S. spokeswoman said, reports Reuters.

"At the request of the Afghan government, the Afghan national army is there, but coalition forces are not with them," spokeswoman Lieutenant Cindy Moore told AFP. She had no information on whether any of them were caught up in the unrest.

"We support the right of people to voice their opinions, but violence takes away the people's right of expression."

A source with the NATO-led international peacekeeping contingent in Afghanistan said the demonstration was "growing" and that 200 soldiers from the fledgling Afghan national army, as well as police, were sent to Jalalabad.

"Police had to open fire on the protesters, they were destroying the city," provincial police chief Hazrat Ali told Reuters. He declined to comment on casualties.

"Police opened fire in the air to control the mob, and some people were injured. We do not know how many," Jalalabad city police chief Abdul Rehman said.

"Initially, the demonstrators were peaceful but then a group joined them and the mob turned violent," he added.

"They set fire to the governor's office, they set fire to a number of police posts, they set fire to some NGOs, damaged a part of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan office, they also set fire to the Pakistani consulate. But things are under control."

Two people were "martyred" at the scene and two others apparently died at the hospital, Fazel Mohammad Ibrahimi, hospital chief director, told AFP after a survey of the city's three hospitals.

Another 53 injured people, four of them in a critical condition, were in hospitals while many others were treated for light injuries at both, he said.

Protests also spread to the southeastern city of Khost, where about 1,600 university students took to the streets, burning a picture of Bush and a U.S. flag, but the demonstrations there ended peacefully, witnesses said.

About 1,000 school students also demonstrated in nearby Laghman province, reports Reuters.

There was also a report of a protest in the central province of Wardak. Kabul was quiet, the news agency reports.

Ariane Quentier, a Kabul-based spokeswoman for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said the mob tried, but failed, to set fire to its building in Jalalabad.

Two U.N. cars were set on fire and two U.N. offices attacked but not seriously damaged, said Quentier. All staff had been accounted for and confined to safe areas, reports Reuters.

The Pakistani embassy in Kabul said the mob set fire to the Jalalabad consulate building and two cars parked in the premises.

"Around a dozen members of the mission had left the building before the attack and they all are safe. The building is burned," an embassy staffer told AFP.

Reports about the abuse of Islam's holy book have also angered close U.S. ally Pakistan, saying Saturday it was "deeply dismayed," and demanding an explanation. Politicians in Pakistan have also demanded an apology.

A coalition of conservative Islamic parties in Pakistan said it will hold nationwide protests on Friday, the traditional day of prayer for Muslims, reports the AP.

More than 500 detainees, most captured in Afghanistan or Pakistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, are currently held as "enemy combatants" at the U.S. Naval base and detention center in Guantanamo.

A U.S. military investigation into accusations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay has yet to conclude.