Afghan Anger at Quran Burning Turns Deadly

Mobs Kill at Least Seven Foreigners After Storming U.N. Base Following Destruction of Holy Book by Florida Pastor

from ChaoticFate.com by qew

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576237992783713936.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

By DION NISSENBAUM And MARIA ABI-HABIB

KABUL—A frenzied mob incensed by a Quran-burning ceremony in Florida overran the United Nations office in northern Afghanistan's largest city on Friday, killing at least seven foreigners and several Afghans, U.N. and Afghan officials said.

On Saturday morning, fresh protests broke out in the southern city of Kandahar, with a mob marching on U.N. offices there and chanting "Death to America," officials said. In Kandahar, the protesters were burning vehicles as they marched on the U.N. office, according to an Afghan U.N. worker there. Kandahar is the Taliban's strategic homeland and any anti-Western protest there is likely to escalate quickly.

"Gunshots are being heard from every street," the worker said.

Friday's attack, in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, was the deadliest for the U.N. in Afghanistan, with a toll exceeding that of the October 2009 Taliban assault that killed eight people at a U.N. guest house in Kabul. The Taliban denied responsibility for Friday's deaths, ascribing them to spontaneous popular action.

The Afghan tumult erupted days after President Hamid Karzai condemned as "disrespectful and abhorrent" the March 20 burning of Islam's holy book by the church of Florida pastor Terry Jones. Also in reaction to the Quran burning, two Christians were killed March 25 in Hyderabad, Pakistan, when protesters attacked a church.

Saturday in Kabul, two insurgents fired small arms and rocket-propelled grenades at Camp Phoenix, a U.S.-led coalition base that's one of the main training centers for the Afghan army and police. The attack was thwarted and both insurgents killed with no allied casualties, the coalition said.

A frenzied mob, inflamed by a Quran-burning ceremony in Florida, overran a U.N. office in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 20 people. Dion Nissenbaum has details from Kabul. Plus, Betsy McKay discusses the preacher behind the Quran-burning.

The attack on the U.N. office in Mazar-e-Sharif began after Friday's prayers, when thousands of demonstrators poured out of the historic Blue Mosque and marched more than a mile to the fortified compound. There their anger took a deadly turn.

Demonstrators chanting "Death to America" and "Allahu Akbar" threw stones at the U.N. compound and swarmed the gates as security guards opened fire, two protesters said.

"A few people entered the gates and the entire crowd followed, beating the guards and burning cars," said Jumadin, a 22-year-old taxi driver who took part in the demonstration. "The police arrived and started shooting protesters, enraging the crowd further."

Three European U.N. staff members—a female lieutenant colonel and heads of the political and human-rights sections—were killed, according to diplomats in Kabul. The lieutenant colonel was Norwegian; the nationalities of the other two wasn't clear. Four Nepalese Gurkha security guards were also killed, officials said. Afghan officials said between five and 12 Afghans died. A Russian diplomat who heads the office, responsible for northern Afghanistan, was severely beaten but survived.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the killings as "outrageous and cowardly." The attack ranks among the deadliest ever for the U.N., behind the 2003 bombing of its headquarters in Baghdad and the 2007 assault on its offices in Algiers.

President Barack Obama called for calm and support for the U.N. "Their work is essential to building a stronger Afghanistan for the benefit of all its citizens," Mr. Obama said.

Rev. Jones, the Florida pastor, swiftly held the Islamic religion itself responsible for the "tragic" attack in Mazar-e-Sharif. "We must hold these countries and people accountable for what they have done as well as for any excuses they may use to promote their terrorist activities," Rev. Jones said. "The time has come to hold Islam accountable."

Rev. Jones scuttled his widely publicized plan for an "International Burn a Quran Day" last autumn. The event had been condemned by U.S. politicians and military commanders, with U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, the head of coalition forces in Afghanistan, warning it could jeopardize American soldiers and provide extremists with inflammatory anti-Western fodder.

But on March 20 the burning went ahead, in a ceremony at Rev. Jones's Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla. Stephanie Sapp, who said her husband, Pastor Wayne Sapp, participated, said the Quran was placed "on trial," was found "guilty," and was executed by being set ablaze.

From the Archives

• Florida Pastor Won't Burn Quran, 'Ever'(9/11/2010)
• Muslims in New York Still Feel Vulnerable(9/10/2010)
• Opinion: Questions for Imam Rauf From an American Muslim (9/10/2010)
• Bloomberg Defends Right to Burn Quran(9/08/2010)
• Petraeus Speaks Out on Quran Burning(9/06/2010)

• Church Plans to Hold Quran Burning on 9/11 (9/7/2010)
• Religious Profiling of Muslim-Americans in U.S. (3/25/2011)

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said that Friday's deadly attack "shows that irresponsible words and actions can have tragic and deadly consequences overseas."

Rev. Jones last autumn sought a meeting with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who planned to open an Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York, saying he would abandon his Quran-burning if the planned center was moved or canceled.

Imam Rauf on Friday denounced the attacks in Afghanistan, and condemned religious extremism. "Just as Terry Jones, who operates a tiny fringe group, does not represent the teaching of Christianity and the Christian church, extremist Muslims do not represent 1.6 billion adherents of Islam," he said in a statement.

In Afghanistan, the country's top Islamic religious scholar, acting Ulema Council chief Mawlawi Qyamudin Kashaf, called for trying Rev. Jones as a war criminal for the sacrilege. "The entire nation of Afghanistan is Muslim and they are angry over the Quran burning," he said. "I forecast such violent protests in Afghanistan in the future unless the U.S. government puts him on trial."

View Slideshow

European Pressphoto Agency

An injured man is carried out of the United Nations office in northern Afghanistan after a violent protest against the burning of a copy of the Quran in a small Florida church.

Afghans who took part in Friday's protest said the mosque's preacher urged worshipers to join a peaceful protest against the Quran desecration.

Staffan de Mistura, head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, flew to Mazar-e-Sharif, considered one of the safest cities in the country, to assess the situation after the attack.

It remained unclear what steps the U.N. would take, though immediately after the attack all staff members in Afghanistan were placed under the tightest security restrictions. After the 2009 killings at the Kabul guest house, hundreds of staff members were temporarily relocated abroad.

Qari Qudrat, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Mazar-e-Sharif, said that police had arrested several "Taliban insurgents" who grabbed the guns of the U.N. guards and used them during the attack.

Mazar-e-Sharif is scheduled to be one of the first big cities to be officially turned over to full Afghan security control beginning in July.

Anti-Western animosity has been increasing, stoked by a jump in civilian casualties caused by U.S.-led military forces and by Mr. Karzai's persistent criticism of Westerners in Afghanistan.

"There is a rise in radicalism again," said Haroun Mir, head of the Afghanistan Center for Research and Policy Studies. "When the Afghan president criticizes the U.S., NATO and U.N. it has an impact on people."

—Joe Lauria, Arian Campo-Flores, Walid Fazly and Habib Khan Totakhil contributed to this