KABUL – Two people were killed yesterday in a third straight day of violent Afghan protests sparked by a US pastor’s threat to burn copies of the Koran.
Hundreds of Afghans kept up the angry demonstrations, some apparently unaware that pastor Terry Jones had dropped his plans. Two protesters were shot and killed in the eastern province of Logar, a district official said, taking the death toll since last Friday to three.
The furore over Mr Jones’s plan – a grave insult to Muslims who believe the Koran to be the literal word of God – overshadowed the lead-up to commemorations of the hijacked airliner attacks on the US September 11th, 2001.
Other parts of the Muslim world had protests last week but yesterday’s violence was confined to Afghanistan, six days before a parliamentary election that the Taliban has vowed to disrupt.
The United Nations’ top diplomat in Afghanistan said the protests risked delaying the election and warned that the Taliban, which has vowed to continue fighting until nearly 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan have left, could try to exploit popular anger over the issue.
Poor security is already a major concern ahead of the vote, with more than 1,000 polling centres out of a planned 6,835 to remain closed. Yesterday, the Nato-led international security assistance force said a Taliban commander who had been plotting rocket attacks on polling stations had been killed in eastern Nangarghar a day earlier.
The election is seen as a key test of stability in Afghanistan before US president Barack Obama conducts a strategy review of the increasingly unpopular war in December.
Angry protesters chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Christians” clashed with security forces in Logar, south of the capital, on Sunday.
Seven demonstrators were wounded, one seriously, when Afghan security forces opened fire to disperse hundreds of protesters marching to Pul-e-Alam, the capital of Logar, officials said.
Mohammad Rahim Amin, chief of Baraki Barak district just west of Pul-e-Alam, said two of the wounded died later in hospital.
The protesters threatened to attack foreign military bases.
“The governor must give us an assurance that the church is not going to burn the Koran, otherwise we will attack foreign troop bases in our thousands,” protester Mohammad Yahya said.
Some of the protesters seemed not to know that Mr Jones had called off his plan. Many in impoverished Afghans have limited access to news and the internet.
Major Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for the international security assistance force, said it was aware of more protests in Logar yesterday and estimated the crowd at about 100, some wielding sticks and throwing stones.
Four protesters were wounded in Logar on Saturday, a day after one was shot dead when an angry crowd attacked a German-run base in the northeast, one of many protests in the country. – (Reuters)