Afghans protest over claim Koran desecrated

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A group of Afghans protested on Monday against what they called the desecration of the Koran by British forces, the district governor said, although he and a British spokesman denied any desecration took place.

Numerous people describing themselves as demonstrators and residents also telephoned a Reuters reporter in the southern city of Kandahar to say some 600 people took part in the protest in Girishk district of neighbouring Helmand province.

Abdul Manaf, Girishk's district governor, said 150 people had demonstrated in the town, but that there had been no desecration of the holy book and Taliban fighters had spread false rumours to provoke a protest.

One self-described protester who introduced himself as Ghulam Mohammad said British soldiers knocked copies of the Muslim holy book out of the hands of villagers.

"The villagers told them that there were no Taliban hiding in the villages and swore by copies of the Koran they had in their hands," he said by telephone. "The British soldiers threw away the Koran and began searching the houses."

Chanting slogans against the Afghan government and foreign troops, the protesters will continue unless the culprits are punished, another man said.

British forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Simon Millar said a small protest had taken place, but there had been no desecration of the Koran. He added that there would be a shura, or tribal council, held on Tuesday to discuss the matter.

There was no way of independently confirming the conflicting reports of the desecration.

Bloody protests have sometimes been held across Afghanistan against alleged desecration of the Koran by U.S. soldiers in Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba where the U.S. military is holding hundreds of suspected militants.

Insurgents loyal to the hard-line Islamist Taliban movement are fighting a bitter guerrilla war mainly in the south and east. They have increasingly used suicide and roadside bombs in their campaign to oust the pro-Western Afghan government and eject more than 50,000 foreign troops from the country.