Koran riots bring more death to Afghanistan

On Friday 11 people were killed, including seven foreign UN employees, in a protest in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

The protests come at a critical juncture as the US-led coalition gears up for an insurgent spring offensive and troop withdrawals.

Two suicide attackers disguised as women blew themselves up and a third was gunned down when they tired to enter a Nato base on the outskirts of Kabul.

Earlier in the week, six US soldiers died during an operation against insurgents in eastern Afghanistan near their safe havens in Pakistan.

President Hamid Karzai expressed regret for the 20 protest deaths, but he also further stoked anti-foreigner sentiments by again demanding that the US and United Nations bring to justice the pastor of the Dove Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida, where the Koran was burned. The pastor, the Rev Terry Jones, had threatened to destroy a copy of Islam’s holy book last year but initially backed down. On Friday he said Islam and its followers were responsible for the killings.

US president Barack Obama said desecration of the Koran was “an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry”, but that did not justify attacking and killing innocent people, calling the UN compound attack “outrageous and an affront to human decency and dignity”.

In the southern city of Kandahar nine protesters were killed and 81 others were injured in the demonstration that turned into a riot. .

In Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghan demonstrators stormed the UN compound, shooting dead four Nepalese guards, a Norwegian, a Romanian and a Swede.

n At least 30 people have been killed and 100 wounded in two suicide bombings at a shrine in Pakistan. Thousands of people were visiting the shrine in the Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab when the bombers struck. Hard-line Muslims believe visiting shrines is against the spirit of Islam.