Koran-burning protests spread in Afghanistan
KABUL — Violent protests over the burning of a Koran spread to the heart of Taliban country Saturday, as clashes between demonstrators and Afghan police in Kandahar left at least nine people dead and more than 90 injured, according to Afghan officials.
The clashes marked the second consecutive day that mobs thronged the streets of major Afghan cities to protest the burning of Islam’s holy book last month by a Florida pastor. On Friday, a mob attacked a United Nations compound in the normally placid northern city of Mazar-e Sharif and killed seven U.N. employees, including four Nepalese guards and three European staff members.
The Koran burning also prompted more peaceful demonstrations in the capital, Kabul, in the western city of Herat and in the northern province of Takhar.
The protests have tapped into a well of frustration among many Afghans about the decade-long presence of U.S. and international troops on their soil. The sentiments expressed in signs and chants have denounced America and President Obama and called on troops to leave the country. The Taliban has played a murky role in the protests so far: Some Afghan officials allege its fighters have infiltrated crowds to encourage violence, but it has been content in public statements to cheer on the protesters without claiming responsibility for the unrest.
The protests have also been fueled by mullahs, who in their Friday sermons took a cue from President Hamid Karzai’s denunciation of Jones’s church four days after the Koran was burned. Afghan mosques, even mainstream, publicly funded ones, have emerged as a powerful anti-American voice in the country, and the imams regularly call for U.S. troops to withdraw.
The protests in Kandahar began Saturday morning with a few hundred people in a downtown bazaar not far from the offices of the provincial government. As the protesters moved around the city, the crowds grew larger. Some protesters said they had intended to approach the local United Nations office but were blocked by Afghan security forces.
Some of the participants were armed with guns and sticks and waving white flags, the banner of the Taliban. They set fire to a girls’ high school and torched buses and cars. Shops were shuttered, and security forces blocked roads to try to quell the violence.
The police opened fire on the crowds, the protesters said. The city’s provincial director of public health, Abdul Qayoum Pukhla, said all of the injured who came or were brought to Kandahar hospitals had suffered gunshot wounds.
“We’re still receiving wounded people,” he said after hours of violence.
The provincial police chief, Khan Mohammad Mojayed, denied that his men were firing on protesters, saying they were shooting in the air to disperse the crowd.
“The police have to protect the civilians,” he said. “Among the protesters there were also some armed men with sticks and guns. They were stopping the cars and damaging them and opening fire.”
The provincial governor’s office issued a statement blaming the mayhem on “wicked and destructive people” among the protesters but endorsed people’s right to condemn the Koran burning.
Jan Aghan, a 28-year-old shopkeeper in Kandahar, said he took part to “show the infidels that we are unhappy with their actions.” He said the protesters wanted to go to the United Nations office but the “Afghan slave government and the cruel Americans” blocked their path.
“We think the Karzai government doesn’t want any protest against the people who burnt our holy book in America,” he said. “We are waiting to find a way to reach to the [U.N.] office and announce our objections.”
The governor’s spokesman, Zalmay Ayoubi, blamed the unrest on the “idiot, infidel, blasphemous Americans” and said the people have a right to show their anger about the desecration of the Koran.
Also Saturday morning, Taliban fighters attacked the gate of a large NATO military base on the outskirts of Kabul but failed to inflict serious damage or breach the compound walls, according to NATO and Afghan officials.
About six insurgents, including at least two disguised in burqas, the full-body covering common among Afghan women, attacked Camp Phoenix at about 6:30 a.m. using Kalashnikovs and explosives, according to Afghan and NATO officials. Three NATO service members suffered minor injuries.
The guards at the base, on the eastern outskirts of the city, fought off the attackers and killed two of them, said Maj. Michael Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul. According to Afghan police officials, three of the insurgents wore suicide vests and blew themselves up.
One 25-year-old Afghan man who lives in the poor neighborhood around the base was also killed. The spokesman for Kabul’s police chief said that an investigation has begun to determine if the man was the driver for the attackers or an innocent bystander.
Johnson said that there was “absolutely no indication” that the attack on Camp Phoenix, used by the American military, was related to the Koran burning protests.
partlowj@washpost.com
