Afghan Quranimals killing each other over Quran burning plan

[Zelhar]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/world/asia/11afghan.html?_r=1

Afghan Protests Against Koran Burning Turn Violent

Rahmat Gul/Associated Press
People burned tires and blocked a highway in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, during a protest in reaction to a small American church’s plan to burn copies of the Koran.
By ROD NORDLAND
Published: September 10, 2010
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KABUL, Afghanistan — Numerous protests broke out in Afghanistan on Friday and two of them turned violent in response to plans by a Florida pastor to burn copies of the Koran, even after the pastor announced he had suspended those plans.
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Rahmat Gul/Associated Press
Jalalabad on Friday.
In western Afghanistan, one civilian was killed and three were wounded by gunshots at a protest outside a NATO base in Bala Buluk, according to a hospital official there.

In northern Afghanistan, five Afghan protesters were wounded by gunshots, three of them critically, when hundreds of men tried to force their way onto a NATO reconstruction base in Faizabad, the capital of Badakshan Province, Afghan officials said.

There were few details on what happened regarding the death in western Afghanistan, except that it was the result of a protest outside the NATO reconstruction base in Bala Buluk in Farah Province.

Nasir Sultan Zada, the emergency room doctor on duty at the government hospital in Bala Buluk, said four protesters were brought to the hospital suffering from gunshot wounds, one already dead.

“We do not know who shot them,” Dr. Zada said. “Whether police shot them or coalition forces, it’s not clear.”

He identified the dead man as Muhammad Daoud, 24, of Shewan, a village in Farah Province.

In Faizabad, in addition to the five wounded protesters, four policemen were wounded defending the NATO base from attack, officials said. Muhammad Amin, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said earlier reports that a protester had been shot to death there proved false.

Aga Noor Kentooz, the provincial police commander in Faizabad, also said that although a mob tried to force its way into the base, no one was killed. He added that the wounded civilians were hit by shots fired from inside the base, and the injured Afghan policemen were hurt by stones thrown by the crowd.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force disputed the reports.

“All of our reporting is saying that no ISAF forces have fired anything,” Capt. Ryan Donald, a spokesman, said, referring to both protests.

In Faizabad, both Afghan officials’ accounts said the trouble came after several thousand people left morning prayers for the Id al-Fitr holiday and attended a peaceful demonstration against the plans for the Koran burning. Although the Florida pastor, Terry Jones, said Thursday that he had canceled plans to stage the event on Saturday, in commemoration of 9/11, his subsequent comments left it unclear if he planned to go ahead or not.

After the demonstration in Faisabad broke up, groups of several hundred young men, both on foot and piled into automobiles, stormed toward Airport Road and the NATO reconstruction team base, which is staffed by German soldiers who are part of the NATO-led international force.

After overpowering Afghan security forces on the outer wall of the compound, the crowd, armed with sticks and throwing rocks, tried to storm the inner wall, the Afghan officials said.

Commander Kentooz said “foreign security forces” inside the base then fired warning shots, and when that failed to work they fired into the crowd. Mr. Amin put the number of wounded at five civilians hit by gunfire, and four Afghan security officers hurt by stones from the crowd.

The director of the Public Health Hospital in Faisabad, Abdul Mohmin Jalali, said five civilians were admitted there with gunshot wounds; one was treated and released, and three of the four who remained in the hospital were in critical condition.

The police commander said protesters outside the German base were angered because of reports that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had attended an award ceremony in Berlin for the Danish cartoonist whose caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad angered Muslims worldwide.

At the same ceremony, Mrs. Merkel denounced the plans of the Florida pastor to desecrate the Koran.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, has warned that plans for the Koran-burning put coalition troops at risk, and both President Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates called on the Florida pastor not to go ahead with his planned action.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, there were numerous reports of demonstrations against the Koran-burning in Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad, as well as in Bamyan, Kunar and Kapisa Provinces, but they were small and mostly peaceful.

President Hamid Karzai, in a message issued for the Id al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, called on Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban insurgents fighting his government, to join the peace process.

Mullah Omar’s own Id message was uncompromising, boasting that American forces were on the verge of leaving Afghanistan, and ignoring calls for peace talks.

The president’s remarks came after prayers for Id at the mosque on the presidential palace grounds and a statement from his office said, “The President once again called on Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban, and other angry Afghans, to honor Id by joining the peace process and stop killing our brothers and harming civilians.”

Mr. Karzai also criticized the plans to burn the Koran.

“Disrespect to this holy book will not harm this book because the Koran is in every Muslim’s heart and mind,” he said. “I hope these people will stop this disrespect.”

The demonstrations were lightly attended for the most part, although officials in Kapisa Province said a crowd of 10,000 gathered there on Thursday. Television footage, however, showed only a few hundred, and government officials there said the protest was organized by people connected to the governor, who had earlier been the target of an American-supported anticorruption investigation.

Mullah Omar’s remarks, in a message posted on jihadist Web sites Friday and monitored in Kabul, were notably more confident than previous such messages from the reclusive leader, who American military officials believe has been hiding in Pakistan since the fall of his regime in 2001.

“The victory of our Islamic nation over the invading infidels is now imminent,” Mullah Omar’s statement said. “All those who work in the stooge Kabul administration should hear with open ears that the invading enemy is about to leave Afghanistan.”

President Karzai’s message referred to his establishment of a High Peace Council, asking the Taliban to cooperate with that organization. A peace jirga in June agreed to create such a body for the purpose of negotiating with the Taliban, but so far the decree creating the council has not been published and its members, especially the chairman, have not yet been announced.

Sharifullah Sahak and Adam B. Ellick contributed reporting from Kabul, and an Afghan employee of The New York Times from Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

[Rubystars]

See all you nay-sayers, it IS worth it, and it does make a difference. These Quranimals will never hurt anyone now because they're dead.

[TruthSpreader]

Good. Let 'em kill each other.