The U.S. head of NATO troops in Afghanistan apologized for the bone-headed burning of old Korans at a coalition base that stoked rioting outside the wire. Click below to read the rest of the story.
Thousands of Afghans massed outside Bagram Air Base north of Kabul where the burning occurred, hurling Molotov cocktails and yelling “Die, die, foreigners!â€
A grim-faced Gen. John Allen promptly took to YouTube and said an investigation was already underway.
“I assure you — I promise you — this was not intentional in any way,†Allen said, extending apologies to the Afghan people, the country’s government, and President Hamid Karzai.
The Muslim holy texts and other Islamic materials, used by NATO prisoners on the base, were burned as trash in the early morning hours.
When local base employees realized what was happening, they frantically reached into the fire to salvage the papers, severely burning their hands, a witness said.
NATO personnel hastily extinguished the fire and pieces of scorched paper were retrieved, but the damage was done.
Per Islamic doctrine, old or unusable Korans are to be buried in untrodden ground or sunken in flowing water.
The incident comes as the Pentagon investigates video of Marines in Afghanistan urinating on the bodies of enemy dead, and a photo of another Marine unit — apparently scout snipers — with a flag bearing the Nazi “SS†rune.
A false 2005 report that interrogators at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba flushed a Koran down a toilet spurred riots that killed at least 15 people.
