More violence as Quran burning protests enter third day

At least one person is killed and 16 others injured on Sunday as a fresh wave of protests took place in Kandahar and the adjoining districts of Dand and Panjwayi.

KABUL // Afghan protests against the burning of a Quran in Florida entered a third day with a demonstrations in the east, while the Taliban called on people to rise up, blaming government forces for any violence.

At least one person was killed and 16 others injured on Sunday as a fresh wave of protests took place in Kandahar and the adjoining districts of Dand and Panjwayi.

"They have brought 16 wounded suffering from stone injuries and bullet wounds. Two are police officers," Abdul Qayoum Pukhla, the provincial health director said..

At least one person was killed, according to another government official who asked not to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The desecration at a small US church has outraged Muslims worldwide, and in Afghanistan many of the demonstrations have turned into deadly riots. Protests in the north and south in recent days have killed 20 people.

The protest in Jalalabad city was peaceful, with hundreds of people blocking a main highway for three hours, shouting for US troops to leave and burning an effigy of President Barack Obama before dispersing, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene.

A similar protest in eastern Parwan province blocked a main highway with burning tires for about an hour, with more than 1,000 people protesting against the desecration of the Quran, said provincial police chief Sher Ahmad Maladani. He said there was no violence.

The Taliban said in a statement emailed to media outlets that the US and other Western countries have wrongly excused the burning a Quran by the pastor of a Florida church on March 20 as freedom of speech and that Afghans "cannot accept this un-Islamic act".

On Saturday, the US president, Barack Obama, extended his condolences to the families of those killed by the protesters and said desecration of the Quran "is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry." But he said that does not justify attacking and killing innocent people, calling it "outrageous and an affront to human decency and dignity".

Eleven were killed Friday when demonstrators stormed a UN compound, including seven foreign UN employees. A riot on Saturday in southern Kandahar city resulted in nine deaths and more than 80 injured.

The Taliban statement said that those killed during the protests were unarmed demonstrators.