Afghans storm UN office over burning of Quran; 7 killed

Associated Press

KABUL

Afghans angry over the burning of a Quran at a small Florida church stormed a U.N. compound in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing seven foreigners, including four Nepalese guards.

Afghan authorities suspect insurgents melded into the mob, and they announced the arrest of more than 20 people, including a militant they suspect was the ringleader of the assault in Mazar-i-Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh province. The suspect was an insurgent from Kapisa province, a hotbed of militancy about 250 miles southeast of the city, said Rawof Taj, deputy provincial police chief.

The topic of Quran burning stirred outrage among millions of Muslims and others worldwide after the Rev. Terry Jones’ small church, Dove Outreach Center, threatened to destroy a copy of the holy book last year. The pastor backed down, but the church in Gainesville, Fla., went through with the burning last month.

Four protesters also died in the violence in Mazar-i-Sharif, which is on a list of the first seven areas of the country where Afghan security forces are slated to take over from the U.S.-led coalition starting in July. Other demonstrations, which were peaceful, took place in Kabul and Herat in western Afghanistan, fueling resentment against the West at a critical moment in the Afghan war.

Protesters burned a U.S. flag at a sports stadium in Herat and chanted “Death to the U.S.” and “They broke the heart of Islam.” About 100 people also gathered at a traffic circle near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain LeRoy said the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, Staffan De Mistura, who is in Mazar-i-Sharif, believes “the U.N. was not the target.”

“They wanted to find an international target, and the U.N. was the one there in Mazar-i-Sharif,” LeRoy told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Initially, Afghan police reported that eight foreigners had been killed in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Late on Friday, Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in Kabul, revised the death toll to seven — four foreign security guards and three other foreigners.

The U.N. Security Council had an emergency meeting late Friday and condemned the attack “in the strongest terms.”

The U.N.’s most powerful body also condemned “all incitement to and acts of violence” and called on the Afghan government to bring those responsible to justice and take steps to protect U.N. personnel and premises.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is in Nairobi, said it was “an outrageous and cowardly attack against U.N. staff, which cannot be justified under any circumstances and [which] I condemn in the strongest possible terms.”

President Barack Obama condemned the attack and underscored the importance of the U.N.’s work in Afghanistan.

At the U.S. State Department, spokesman Mark Toner said the burning of a Quran in Florida was contrary to Americans’ respect for Islam and religious tolerance.