BRUSSELS - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said deadly clashes in the city of Jalalabad on Wednesday proved his government cannot cope alone, and urged the international community to support Afghanistan long-term.
"What happened in Jalalabad today showed the inability of the state institutions," Karzai said at NATO headquarters in Brussels during a visit aimed at winning international support for Afghanistan beyond the general elections in September.
At least four people were killed and dozens injured in the eastern city in a protest involving clashes with police sparked by a report that US soldiers were desecrating the Koran at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The US State Department said late on Tuesday that the Pentagon was investigating a report in the US-based Newsweek magazine that interrogators in Guantanamo kept copies of the Koran in toilets to annoy prisoners.
"It also shows that Afghanistan's institutions, the police, the army, are not ready to handle protests and demos," said Karzai.
He said the fact that people were in the streets showed that Afghan society had evolved considerably since the fundamentalist Taliban regime was removed by a US-led military coalition at the end of 2001.
"The event this morning showed two things: one, that Afghanistan is a democratic state and two, that Afghanistan as a democratic state is not yet ready with institutions to handle it."
The mob in Jalalabad tried to set fire to several key buildings including the offices of several aid agencies, the governor's house and the Pakistani consulate, police and witnesses told AFP.
According to witnesses, police fired their weapons as the crowd rampaged through the centre of the city chanting slogans including "Death to America" and burning effigies of US President George W. Bush.
"It is not anti-American sentiment ... it is a protest over the news of desecration of the Koran in Guantanamo," said Karzai.
More than 500 people, most captured in Afghanistan or Pakistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, are being held without charge as "enemy combatants" at the US naval base and detention centre in Guantanamo.
Karzai came to power on October 9, 2004, in Afghanistan's first democratic elections, but he has struggled to bring security to the largely lawless areas beyond the capital Kabul.
With a general election due in September, he fears the West may abandon his country believing that good enough progress has already been made.
"My request to you today is that you continue to stay with us after the parliamentary elections because if you don't do that you will leave the work half way undone," he told NATO's governing political body.
"It will take our country many years before we can stand on our own feet in real terms."
More than 10.5 million voters are expected to vote on September 18 to elect the 249-seat lower house known as the Wolesi Jirga. At the same time they will choose provincial councils spread over Afghanistan's 34 provinces.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer highlighted the support NATO has already provided and said it aimed to beef up forces under its command, extending operations to the south and east by mid-2006.
NATO currently operates the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) deployed in Afghanistan, which includes about 8,000 troops from 37 countries. It is currently active in the north and west of the country.
Karzai, on a three-day visit, was also to meet with Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. He will meet European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday to discuss reconstruction and efforts to combat the heroin trade.
05/11/2005 11:15 GMT