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05/11/2005:

"Afghanistan Sees Worst Anti-U.S. Protests Since Fall of Taliban"

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 11 - Four Afghan protesters were killed and more than 60 were injured today in the eastern city of Jalalabad in the worst anti-American demonstrations Afghanistan has seen in the three years since the fall of the Taliban. At least a dozen buildings were ransacked and burned, including the governor's office, several government buildings, the United Nations mission compound, and a number of offices belonging to aid groups.

Afghan police and army troops, along with American forces, were deployed in the town and eventually quelled the riots, but not before running clashes with protesters. Foreign nationals were evacuated from the city as their offices came under attack and the air filled with smoke and gunfire. Government officials said the violence appeared to be planned and that religious hardliners and armed men had usurped what started as a student protest.

It was the second day of demonstrations by students in Jalalabad who were angered at a report in Newsweek magazine that United States interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention center had desecrated the Holy Koran by placing it on toilets, and even in one case, flushing a Koran down the toilet. The students carried banners condemning the action, chanted anti-American slogans and burned effigies of President Bush. The protest passed peacefully Tuesday, but violence erupted today with hundreds of stone-throwing and stick-wielding demonstrators spreading across town. They broke into compounds, smashed cars and set fire to offices of the government and of foreign organizations.

The governor's office and the office of the Central Statistics Office were set afire, destroying all the census records, said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Lutfullah Mashal. The Pakistani consulate, the city library and the regional television and radio station were also attacked, he said. The United Nations' main office and two guesthouses were attacked, forcing the staff to evacuate, a United Nations spokeswoman said. Such aid organizations as the Red Cross; Acbar, an umbrella group of nongovernmental organizations; and a French medical agency, Aide Médicale Internationale, were attacked, along with offices of the Women's Affairs Ministry and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, residents said.

Demonstrations were also reported in several other towns in eastern and southern Afghanistan. High school students in Wardak province blocked the main road south from Kabul for an hour but were persuaded to disperse peacefully, said the local police chief, Basir Salangi.

"The students were peaceful and were shouting," said Mr. Mashal, the Interior Ministry spokesman. "But there were some specific, hard-line religious groups involved. From their activities it looks like it was pre-planned." He added that the violence may have been influenced by religious or extreme elements across the border in Pakistan, whether Taliban influence or Pakistani groups.

President Hamid Karzai, on a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels, said that while protests were a sign of democracy, the violence and destruction were an indication of how much Afghanistan still needed foreign assistance.

"Afghanistan's institutions, the police, the army, are not ready to handle protest and demos," he said.
Full: nytimes.com