What US Army says about handling the Quran
This week's protests in Kabul, sparked by rumors that the US Army planned to burn Qurans, have raised questions about what US military teaches its soldiers about respecting Islam.
Unidentified foreign military personnel keep watch outside their base after protesters were pushed back by Afghan police in Kabul on Wednesday. Gunfire wounded at least 26 people during fresh protests in several cities across Afghanistan over the burning of copies of the Quran, Islam's holy book, at NATO's main base in Afghanistan.
Ahmad Masood/Reuters
Two days of protests in Afghanistan have left seven people dead after word emerged that NATO forces may have been preparing to incinerate dozens of copies of Islam’s holy book, the Quran, at a garbage dump at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.
Afghan Army units have battled hundreds of Afghan protesters outside the base, and there appears to be no let up in surging anger toward NATO and US forces, who have used Bagram as their base of operations for a decade in support of the government of President Hamid Karzai.
The trouble started on Monday, after Afghan employees at Bagram discovered Qurans in a heap of books being prepared for incineration. According to the BBC, the Qurans had been confiscated from Afghan prisoners at Bagram, and were thought to have contained coded messages. But the fallout from these allegations is a massive setback for US and NATO at a time when they're preparing to reduce combat forces.
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