Ten die in Afghan Koran demo after UN killings

Ten people died yesterday in new protests against a Koran burning in the US, a day after seven UN staff were killed by a mob in the worst attack on the world body in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

The fresh protests began in the centre of the main southern city of Kandahar and spread as police clashed with crowds marching towards the UN offices and provincial administration headquarters, witnesses said.

Police had fired into the air to try to deter thousands of protesters heading towards the buildings, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Smoke was rising from different parts of the city as protesters burned cars and tyres.

The provincial authorities said the protesters had damaged government and private buildings and torched vehicles.

Daud Farhad, a senior doctor in the city’s main hospital, told AFP the death toll had risen to 10, with 83 injured.

Kandahar is the spiritual heartland of the Taliban, who have fought an insurgency against President Hamid Karzai’s government in Kabul and its Western allies since they were ousted by the US-led invasion.

“Death to America” and “Death to Karzai” chanted the demonstrators. “They have insulted our Koran,” shouted one.

Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the provincial administration, told AFP a bus and a girls’ school had also been set ablaze, adding that all the dead and injured were protesters.

The protest ended in the early evening, an AFP correspondent saw, as the leaders of the demonstration went to meet with provincial authorities and the demonstrators left Kandahar’s main square.

Kandahar provincial governor Toryalai Wesa said in a press conference 20 people had been arrested, among them 10 who were in possession of weapons and grenades, adding that police and civilians had been shot.

“When the demonstration started, some destructive elements had penetrated the protesters and caused civilian casualties,” he said, stressing that the authorities were not notified and had not authorised the demonstration.

“In fact, it wasn’t a demonstration, it was an attack which caused heavy damage to civilians and private property,” he said.

The protest came a day after seven UN foreign staff – three Europeans and four Nepalese guards – were killed during similar demonstrations in the normally relatively calm northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

US President Barack Obama condemned the attack while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it was “an outrageous and cowardly attack”.

The UN leader told Karzai in a telephone call “he would continue to work with the Alliance of Civilizations to promote tolerance for all faiths,” his spokesman said. The alliance, set up by Spain and Turkey in 2005, seeks to defuse tensions between the Western and Islamic worlds.

The UN did not announce the nationalities of the three civilian staff killed. But Sweden named one as 33-year-old Swede, Joakim Dungel. Norway said Lieutenant Colonel Siri Skare, a 53-year-old female pilot, was killed. Diplomats said the third was a Romanian.