KABUL - Protests against the alleged desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay spread across the Muslim world Friday, with seven Afghans dying in fresh violence and hardliners rallying in Pakistan and Indonesia.
The worst anti-US demonstrations since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 entered a fourth day in Afghanistan, spreading to new cities across the conservative nation where American troops maintain a heavy presence.
Afghan troops shot dead three people as protesters tried to storm the governor`s house in southern Ghazni province, bringing the number of people killed since Tuesday to 14, officials said.
The police chief of Ghazni was shot in the chest and US forces airflited him to the capital Kabul for medical treatment, witnesses and doctors said. Eighteen other people were injured in the clashes.
Another three died when around 1,000 people took to the streets near Faizabad, capital of the northeastern province of Badakshan. Twenty-two people including three policemen were also injured and protesters torched the offices of three foreign aid agencies, provincial officials said.
The army also opened fire on some 300 protesters in the southeastern city of Gardez, killing one and injuring at least three, doctors and officials said. Some protesters were carrying guns, according to the provincial security chief.
New protests broke out for a second day in the capital Kabul although witnesses said only around 50 people turned out and they ended peacefully.
Afghan officials have suggested that elements opposed to the US-backed effort to rebuild the war-ravaged country have coordinated the violence.
The US has promised an inquiry and action against soldiers at the US detention center at Guantanamo. According to Newsweek magazine they defiled copies of the Muslim holy book by leaving them in toilet cubicles and stuffing one down a lavatory to rattle Muslim prisoners.
Muslims believe that the Koran contains the actual words of God.
In neighbouring Pakistan, a key ally in what the US calls its war on terrorism, hundreds of Islamic hardliners burned US flags and effigies of President George W. Bush to vent their anger, witnesses said.
Demonstrators in several cities including the capital Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore chanted "Death to America" while speakers at rallies called by an alliance of religious parties demanded the US government punish those involved in the reported desecration of the Muslim holy book.
About 6,000 Afghan refugees also staged a demonstration in a camp near the conservative northwestern city of Peshawar, before dispersing peacefully.
During a rally in Karachi, Pakistan`s largest city, a senior member of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Islamic alliance, Mairajul Huda, told protesters that people "should rise against the anti-Muslim policies of the United States."
Speaking in Sydney, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri called for severe punishment for any US soldiers proved to have been involved in any abuse of the Koran.
"Even the worst enemy of the United States could not harm the image of the United States in the Muslim world as effectively as they`ve done if this is correct," he said.
Jakarta, capital of the world`s most populous Muslim nation Indonesia, saw a rally at a mosque by hundreds of people protesting against the alleged sacrilege.
Students in the Indonesian city of Makassar on Sulawesi island took to the streets and searched hotels and the airport for any Americans, Detikcom news portal reported. No Americans were found.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used an appearance before a Senate committee on Thursday to make a special statement to Muslims in America and across the world, and promised a full investigation.
"Disrespect for the holy Koran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States," she said.
The Saudi government on Thursday urged the US to carry out a rapid inquiry, saying that if allegations were found to be true, measures should be taken to dissuade against any similar incident in the future.
05/13/2005 15:38 GMT