MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Asian protesters angered by the burning of a Book by an fog U.S. pastor killed up to 20 U.N. staff, beheading digit foreigners, when they over-ran a bilobed in a ordinarily tranquil Federal municipality on weekday in the poorest ever move on the U.N. in Afghanistan.
At small eight foreigners were among the departed after attackers took discover section guards, destroyed parts of the bilobed and climbed up wind walls to topple a protect tower, said Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, a personnel spokesman for the Federal region.
Five protesters were also killed and around 20 wounded.
The governor of Balkh province said insurgents had utilised the territory as cover to move the compound, in a effort that raged for several hours and raises serious questions most plans to attain the municipality a pilot for section designate to national forces.
"The insurgents hit taken plus of the status to move the U.N. compound," said Governor Ata Mohammad Noor.
He told a programme word that many in the gathering of protesters had been carrying guns. Some 27 grouping hit already been detained over the attack, he added.
Afghan personnel and army, who the United Nations rely on for their prototypal line of defense, were ostensibly unable to control the crowd. German personnel are also stationed in Balkh, and the NATO-led alinement said they had conventional a letter for help.
"Eight foreigners were killed, and digit were beheaded," said Ahmadzai.
A United Nations spokesman addicted employees had been killed but declined to comment on drawing of departed or their nationalities. He said the move would not push the United Nations discover of Afghanistan.
"We need to bonded our colleagues in Mazar-i-Sharif. It's not a discourse of us pulling out. The U.N. is here to stay," said spokesman Kieran Dwyer.
Staffan De Mistura, the crowning U.N. functionary in Afghanistan, has flown to Mazar-i-Sharif to appendage the status personally.
The Slavonic chief of the mission in the city, Pavel Yershov, was injured in the move but is today in hospital, Slavonic land television said, quoting an embassy spokesman.
Russia titled on the Asian polity and international forces to "take all necessary measures" to protect U.N. workers in a statement issued by the external ministry after the attack.
Romania's external ministry said origin information advisable a European citizen was among the dead, and confiscated the attack. US. President Barack Obama and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also confiscated the attack.
DEADLIEST ATTACK?
If the modification sound is correct, it would attain it the deadliest move on the United Nations in Afghanistan, and digit of the poorest on the methodicalness for years.
The poorest preceding move was an rebel move on a guesthouse where U.N. body were staying in October 2009. Five employees were killed and nine others wounded.
The digit maximal attacks on U.N. compounds in another countries are a 2007 assail in port that killed 17 U.N. staff, and a 2003 move on the Bagdad hotel that was the U.N. headquarters there, which killed at small 22 people.
Mazar-i-Sharif has remained relatively tranquil as the insurrection gathers force in another parts of the north, and was recently chosen as digit of the prototypal areas for a transformation of section from NATO personnel to Asian forces.
Long-standing anger over civilian casualties has been heightened by the Book burning and the recent publication of gruesome photographs of the body of an unarmed Asian teenager killed by U.S. soldiers.
The faith clergyman Terry Jones, who after international denunciation terminal assemblage canceled a organisation to defect copies of the Koran, supervised the burning of the book in front of a gathering of most 50 grouping at an fog church in Florida on Sunday, according to his website.
The Book burning was denounced by Karzai and Pakistani President Asif calif Zardari.
Thousands of demonstrators marched through western metropolis municipality and around 200 in Kabul to protest against the aforementioned incident, but there was no violence at either demonstration.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi in KABUL, Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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