Government source says more than 100 killed in Kandahar Quran burning protests‎

[News_Editor]

Government source says more than 100 killed in Kandahar Quran burning protests‎

2011-04-04 04:02:19 GMT+7 (ICT)

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN (BNO NEWS) -- More than 100 people have died in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar during protests against the burning of a Quran by an American pastor, RIA Novosti reported Sunday.

Eyewitnesses said police are firing on crowds with automatic weapons, while a source in the Interior Ministry told RIA Novosti that the death toll had passed 100. Other media reports, however, say that at least 30 people have died since the protests began three days ago.

Eyewitnesses told the agency by telephone that police had opened fire on a crowd that tried to storm a United Nations office, located next to a government building.

"A machine gun is being fired, there are a lot of victims," one person said, as cited by the agency.

Police in Kandahar said earlier in the day that they prevented an attempted attack on a UN office, killing nine attackers.

Afghan authorities said Taliban militants have joined the protests, sparking the killings.

Protests over a public burning of Islam's holy book grew into riots on Friday in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where seven UN workers and four protesters died when a mob stormed a UN office.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday condemned the killings.

"The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry. However, to attack and kill innocent people in response is outrageous, and an affront to human decency and dignity," Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

"No religion tolerates the slaughter and beheading of innocent people, and there is no justification for such a dishonorable and deplorable act," he added.

American pastor Wayne Sapp burned a copy of the Quran on March 20. Terry Jones, a US pastor that cancelled a plan to burn copies of the holy book last year to mark the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, was also present at the Florida church.

Sapp, a member of the Dove World Outreach Center, claimed that the holy book had been found "guilty" of crimes in the course of an eight-month trial and was therefore "executed."

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-04-04

[Steely Dan]

They should really seal every border and let them wipe each other out if ever there was a helpless case it's Afghanistan.