ISLAMIC PROTESTS: Angry protests continued across the Muslim world from Gaza to Indonesia yesterday over a report that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran, with calls for retaliation and a rising death toll.
Governments demanded investigations and thousands took to the streets in outrage over a Newsweek magazine report that interrogators at the US military prison in Cuba had put the Muslim holy book on toilets, in at least one case flushing it down.
In Afghanistan at least nine people were killed in protests over the report yesterday, bringing the country's death toll to 16 this week in its worst anti-American demonstrations since the fall of the Taliban.
The unrest spread to Pakistan, which called for a US inquiry. Hundreds of people held a peaceful protest in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
In Gaza several thousand Palestinians marched through a refugee camp in a protest organised by the Islamic militant group Hamas. Several hundred Palestinians also marched in the West Bank city of Hebron.
"The Holy Koran was defiled by the dirtiest of hands, by American hands," a protester shouted at the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, where US and Israeli flags were also burned.
The rising violence prompted US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to urge Muslims on Thursday to resist calls for violence, saying US military authorities were investigating the Koran allegations.
"Disrespect for the Holy Koran is abhorrent to us all," she said.
In Afghanistan and Pakistan, desecration of the Koran is punishable by death.
Indonesia said those responsible must receive a "deserved punishment" for their "immoral action". Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, said it was following the issue with "deep indignation".
Newsweek, in its May 9th edition, quoted sources as saying that investigators looking into abuses at the military prison had found that interrogators "had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet".
Washington is holding more than 500 prisoners from its war on terrorism at the naval base on Cuba.