Saturday, April 2, 2011

Ten dead on second day of Afghan Koran burning protests (Reuters)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – At diminutive 10 grouping impact been killed and 83 injured in the gray Asian municipality of Kandahar, officials said on Saturday, on a ordinal punctuation of ferocious protests over the executing of a Book by a immoderate fundamentalist faith in the United States.

A slayer move also impact a NATO expeditionary humble in the top Kabul, the punctuation after protesters over-ran a United Nations assignment in the Federal municipality of Mazar-i-Sharif and killed heptad external staff, in the deadliest move on the U.N. in Afghanistan.

Some protesters in municipality carried white Taleban flags and loud slogans including "long springy the Taliban" and "death to America." In disorder that lasted hours, they broken shops, destroyed tires and vandalized a girl's broad school.

Two of the departed were Asian policemen, an authorised said.

The hostility is the worst in Afghanistan in months and came as the land intermeshed up for the first stage of a years-long section handover to Asian troops, and after the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General king Petraeus, delivered an optimistic categorization of advancement in the war.

Top U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said the United Nations would review section arrangements but would not be leaving the land because of Friday's attack.

"This should not counsel the U.N. proximity (and) activities in this land in this delicate and particularly pivotal period," he told a diminutive assemble of journalists after air backwards from Mazar-i-Sharif with the bodies of his departed colleagues.

The protesters were driven by emotion at the actions of immoderate faith preacher Terry designer who supervised the executing of the Book in front of most 50 grouping at a church in Florida on March 20, according to his website.

In an discourse with Reuters on Saturday, designer was unrepentant and defiantly vowed to lead an anti-Islam oppose right the biggest masjid in the United States after this month.

U.S. President Barack Obama denounced the behave of executing a Book but did not mention designer by name.

"The irreverence of whatever blessed text, including the Koran, is an behave of extremity intolerance and bigotry," Obama said in a evidence free by the White House on Saturday. "However, to move and kill innocent grouping in salutation is outrageous, and an offense to manlike decency and dignity."

The executing initially passed relatively unnoticed in Afghanistan, but after critique from President Hamid Karzai, and calls for authorised during weekday sermons, thousands poured into the streets in individual cities to shit Jones.

Afghan and UN officials said insurgents had incited hostility at tranquil protests. Marches in Kabul, the Hesperian municipality of Herat and Federal Tahar domain ended without unrest.

But the Taleban denied whatever persona in the Mazar move or municipality protests and analysts warned against underestimating the depth of anti-Western view in such of Afghanistan, after eld of expeditionary proximity and whatever noncombatant casualties.

"Insurgent encouragement is not needed for things same (the UN attack) to happen, because indeed the feeling and region in a super conception of the accumulation is same this," said Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network.

"Anger over foreigners in general, which has probably spread from the expeditionary to NGOs and the UN and another actors, meet needs a little flash and things can be ordered alight."

In Kabul on Saturday, a assemble of burkha-clad insurgents attacked a coalition base, though they caused only reddened injuries to three soldiers, personnel and NATO said.

SOME SHOT, SOME BEATEN

In Kandahar, digit of the policemen killed and individual civilians died from shot wounds, said Abdul Qayum Pukhla, the grownup health authorised for the province. The rest of the departed had been maltreated and drunk he added.

It was not clear if shot wounds were caused by protesters or personnel disagreeable to control them over hours of rioting.

A adornment of around 150 men who had condemned to the streets to shit the Book executing ordered tires alight, broken shops and assaulted an Asian photographer, Reuters' witnesses said. Some of the attackers were carrying guns.

The artist was impact over the head and had his camera condemned from him and smashed, by protesters who discussed ending him. Police kept another journalists from forthcoming the crowd.

In the hostility they also poor windows and destroyed chairs at the Zarghona High School for girls. The Taleban anti girls' education, and municipality was their spiritual heartland.

The spokesman for the controller of municipality domain said the oppose was designed by the Taleban who used the Book executing as an defence to provoke hostility in a municipality where their reach has been curtailed by an battleful NATO-led expeditionary campaign.

INSURGENTS OR PROTESTERS?

The Taleban said they had no persona in the municipality hostility or Friday's move on the U.N. duty in the commonly tranquil municipality of Mazar-i-Sharif, after both rustic governors and the U.N.'s de Mistura advisable an insurgent role.

"The Taleban had nothing to do with this, it was a clean behave of responsible Muslims," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said by phone from an covert location, referring to the Mazar attack. He after additional that the municipality dissent was also spontaneous.

Several demonstrators flooded into the streets of a municipality considered innocuous sufficiency to be in the position of a pivotal section transition, after weekday prayers ended, and whatever headed straightforward for the U.N. mission.

They overwhelmed section guards there, destroyed parts of the compound and climbed wind walls to fall a protect tower. The throat of digit of the slain foreigners had been slit, the U.N. said.

Five Asian protesters were also killed and others wounded, whatever after disagreeable to take weapons off U.N. section guards.

The move took whatever in the city, digit of the country's most prosperous and stable, by surprise. Some were horrified by the extremity hostility but not every had disposition for the external dead.

"I took conception in the dissent to curse the foreigners, but I had no weapon," shopkeeper Rahim Mohammad said.

"But I don't feel compassionate for U.N. workers killed, our grouping are slaughtered by foreigners everyday."

More vaporific protests are doable crossways deeply churchlike Afghanistan, where anti-Western view has been oxyacetylene for eld by noncombatant casualties, and the Taliban.

(Additional news by Hamid Shalizi in KABUL, Mohammad Bashir in MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Jeff Mason in Washington and Yusila Ramirez in Gainesville, Florida; Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by saint histrion and Paul Simao)


Source

0 comments:

Post a Comment

 
Top World News Copyright © 2009 Blogger Template Designed by Bie Blogger Template