“When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped
them,” Allen said in
a statement. “We are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again.
I assure you ... I promise you ... this was NOT intentional in any way.”
In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney echoed Allen’s statement,
saying: “We apologize to the Afghan people and disapprove of such conduct in the
strongest possible terms. This deeply unfortunate incident does not reflect the
great respect our military has for the Afghan people. It’s regrettable.”
Allen later said he had ordered all NATO forces in Afghanistan to complete
training in the proper handling of religious materials by March 3. NATO said the
order was issued after an incident Sunday night when religious materials,
including Korans “identified for disposal,” were collected at the Parwan
Detention Facility, a prison next to the air base, and “were inadvertently taken
to an incineration facility at Bagram airfield.”
In front of the main entrance to the base, protesters hurled rocks, flung
burning tires and broke the windows of nearby buildings. Many of the protesters
said they have jobs at the base, which employs about 5,000 local residents. On
Tuesday, feeling betrayed, they chanted “long live Islam” and “death to
America.”
U.S. officials said that the copies of the Koran were mistakenly included in
a bundle of material bound for an incinerator on the base. The books were
quickly removed once Afghan employees told American soldiers that burning them
would be deeply sacrilegious.
But that intervention happened only after the pages of some books were
charred. Afghan employees of the base carried those remains outside the Bagram’s
front gate as evidence of what had happened, galvanizing a growing crowd of
protesters.
“The people who do this are our enemies,” said a 27-year-old who has worked
at a warehouse on the base for two years. “How could I ever work for them
again?”
Another Bagram employee who joined the protest said, “Whoever goes back to
work will be killed. They’ll think of us as traitors.”
The books were handed to local parliamentarians and religious officials,who
took them to the Interior Ministry in Kabul, where officials said they will be
held as evidence.
“If the Americans ever deny that they did this, we will show them these
pages,” said Mullah Abdul Rahim Shah Agha, head of Parwan province’s ulema
council, or Muslim clerical body, as he held one of the partially burned
Korans.
Proper treatment of the Koran is a highly sensitive issue for Muslims across
the world, including in Afghanistan, where international troops are fighting to
defeat the militantly Islamist Taliban in a war that has entered its 11th year.
Experts in Islam say copies of the
Koran should be buried or released in flowing waters if they need to be
disposed of, but religious leaders in Afghanistan said Tuesday that local
practice is not to dispose of the texts at all.
In a statement Monday night, NATO said that under Allen’s new order, training
for coalition forces would include “the identification of religious materials,
their significance, correct handling and storage.”
It quoted Allen as saying: “Along with our apology to the Afghans is our
certainty and assurance to them, that these kinds of incidents, when they do
occur, will be corrected in the fastest and most appropriate manner possible.
We’ve been shoulder to shoulder with the Afghans for a long time. We’ve been
dying alongside the Afghans for a long time because we believe in them; we
believe in their country, and we want to have every opportunity to give them a
bright future.”
Previous reports of Koran-burning also have led to violent protests here.
Last April, an angry
mob killed at least seven foreigners in a relatively secure part of northern
Afghanistan and set fire to a United Nations compound, as a protest over a Koran
burning in Florida swelled into chaotic violence.
More than 3,000 people were involved in Tuesday’s protests, which began just
after dawn, following the morning prayers, said Sayed Kheli, a senior police
officer for Parwan province, where Bagram is located. Parwan’s deputy governor,
Shah Wali, said local authorities were trying to quell the demonstrators, who
had gathered at various locations within the sprawling base, about 30 miles
north of Kabul.
“People’s sentiments have been hurt,” Wali said. “They are scattered on
various sides of the base, and we are trying to establish contact with the
commander of the base.”
The road leading to the base was blocked, as Afghan and Western security
forces gathered near the front gate of the base to try to stop the protesters
from forcing their way in. Hundreds of Afghans who live in Kabul but work on the
base had no way to reach their jobs and were told not to enter.
Rumors quickly spread among the protesters and Afghan officials, who
struggled to understand how the Korans landed in the incinerator and what became
of them afterward. Gen. Ahmad Amin Naseeb, director of the Afghan army’s
religious and cultural affairs department, said he had been told “that the
international troops have burned and thrown copies of Koran into the dust
bins.”
Allen’s quickly issued statement was intended to quell such hearsay before
violence could spread. “The materials recovered will be properly handled by
appropriate religious authorities,” Allen said.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul released a statement about the possibility of
future protests across the country. It warned American citizens, “Past
demonstrations in Afghanistan have escalated into violent attacks on Western
targets of opportunity.”
The incident comes at a critical time for the United States, which wants to
wind down its military presence in Afghanistan but seeks to maintain bases here
after 2014, when most foreign troops are set to leave.
Foreign troops have struggled to win local support while pursuing
counterterrorism operations in some parts of the country. Military officials
voiced concern that Tuesday’s incident might pose an unfortunate setback.
Adding to the negative perception of U.S. troops was the release of a video
last month that showed four U.S.
Marines urinating on the corpses of dead Taliban fighters. Afghan President
Hamid Karzai called the video “completely inhumane and condemnable in the
strongest possible terms.” Top U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Leon
E. Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, also denounced the
Marines’ actions.
