‘Extremist messages’ on burned holy books

The military official said it appeared the religious texts were being used to fuel extremism, and detainees at Parwan Detention Facility were writing on the documents to exchange extremist messages.

Two soldiers with the US-led coalition had transported rubbish to the pit on Monday night. When Afghan workers realised the books were in the fire, the five labourers attempted to pull them out.

Parwan Detention Facility adjoins Bagram Air Field, a US base north of Kabul, where more than 2,000 angry Afghans demonstrated against the incident.

The governor’s office in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan called the incident a “shameful move by some stupid individuals”.

But the burning has stoked anti-foreign sentiment already on the rise after a decade of war in Afghanistan. It also fuelled the arguments of Afghans who claim foreign troops are not respectful.

“Die, die, foreigners!” the demonstrators shouted. Some fired rifles into the air. Others threw rocks at the gate of the base and set tyres ablaze.

US Gen John Allen, the top commander of American and Nato forces in Afghanistan, apologised to the Afghan people and said the books were inadvertently given to troops for burning.

“It was not a decision that was made because they were religious materials,” Gen Allen told Nato TV. “It was not a decision that was made with respect to the faith of Islam. It was a mistake. The moment we found out about it we immediately intervened.”

Gen Allen said he would issue an order spelling out how Islamic religious materials should be handled by the coalition.

“This was unintentional,” he said, adding that no member of the coalition deliberately set out to defame Islam or desecrate the religious materials of the faith.