2,000 ANGRY AFGHANS RALLY AGAINST US FORCES
KABUL, Afghanistan - More than 2,000 angry Afghans protested outside an American airbase yesterday after they learned that copies of the Quran were burned in a pile of garbage at a sprawling US military base north of Kabul."Die, die, foreigners!" the demonstrators shouted. Some fired rifles into the air. Others threw rocks at the gate of the base and set tires ablaze.
The burning of the Quran and other religious books was unintentional, US General John Allen, the top commander of American and Nato forces in Afghanistan, said.
- The incident stoked anti-foreign sentiment that is already on the rise after a decade of war in Afghanistan and fuelled the arguments of Afghans who claim foreign troops are not respectful of their culture or Islamic religion.
- Early yesterday, as word of the incident spread, about 100 demonstrators gathered outside the sprawling Bagram Air Field in Parwan province. As the crowd grew, so did the outrage.
- Ahmad Zaki Zahed, chief of the provincial council, said US military officials took him to a pit on the base where 60 to 70 books, including Qurans, were recovered. The books were used by detainees once incarcerated at the base, he said.
- "Some were all burned. Some were half-burned," Zahed said, adding that he did not know exactly how many Qurans had been burned.
- Zahed said five Afghans working at the pit told him that the religious books were in the garbage that two soldiers with the US-led coalition transported to the pit in a truck late Monday night. When they realised the books were in the trash, the labourers quickly worked to recover them, he said.
DEADLY ATTACK ON U.N. BASE IN AFGHANISTAN, 12 DEAD; 2 BY BEHEADING
“Koran Burning is Terrorism”- Killing Unbelievers is a Command From Allah so You Can’t Blame the Worlds 1.5 Gazillion Muslims….by sheikyermami
KABUL, Afghanistan — At least 12 people were killed in Afghanistan Friday, two by beheading after extremists stormed their compound in northern Afghanistan yesterday.Most of those killed were foreigners; namely Norwegian, Romanian, Swedish and Nepalese nationals.
The Afghans extremist enraged by a Florida pastor’s burning of a Koran, according to Afghan officials.
Thousands of protesters mobilized after a midday sermon, then surged toward the offices of the United Nations in Mazar-e Sharif, northern Afghanistan’s largest city and normally a bastion of calm.- Some in the crowd broke into the U.N. office and attacked the staff, killing security guards and members of the U.N. mission, officials said.
- President Obama condemned the killings “in the strongest possible terms” and urged calm and dialogue. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called the attacks “an outrageous and cowardly act...which cannot be justified under any circumstances.”
The shocking killings in Afghanistan were triggered by anger at the burning earlier this month of a copy of the Koran at a church in Florida. The controversial ceremony was carried out by pastor Wayne Sapp and preacher Terry Jones.Mr Jones first came to worldwide attention when he started a Facebook campaign calling for people around the world to set fire to copies of the Koran on last year's ninth anniversary of 9/11. He dubbed it International Burn a Koran Day.
It was only after the intervention of President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates that he went back on his vow to burn the Koran.- He said later that he planned to burn 'a few hundred Korans' in a bonfire on church property and that he was expecting a crowd of 'several hundred' but believed others would burn the books on their own.
On March 21 this year, he finally carried out his threat. A copy of the Koran was burned in front of a crowd of 30 people outside his church. Beforehand, he held a bizarre mock trial and execution of the Holy Book before fellow pastor Wayne Sapp doused it in gasoline and set fire to it.
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