Petraeus Warns Against Planned Koran-Burning
By ADAM B. ELLICK
Published: September 7, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — The top American commander in Afghanistan has warned that plans by a small Florida church to burn copies of the Koran on Saturday, the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, could play into the hands of the very extremists at whom the church says it is directing that message.
Notes from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other areas of conflict in the post-9/11 era.
Burning copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, “would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence,” the commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus said in an e-mail message to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Echoing remarks the general made in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Tuesday, he said: “It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort. It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."
In 2005, violent and sometimes lethal riots were set off around the world by a mistaken report by Newsweek that a Pentagon investigation had found that military interrogators of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, tried to flush a Koran down a toilet. The same year, a Danish newspaper printed cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad also led to riots across the Muslim world.
Terry Jones, the pastor of the tiny Florida church that plans the Koran burning, says that as an American Christian he has a right to burn the Koran because “it’s full of lies.”
Some of his prior attempts to incite anti-Islamic fervor have met with less public attention. Last year, he posted a sign at his church declaring “Islam is of the devil.”
Muslim leaders in several countries, including Egypt and Indonesia, have formally condemned him and his church, the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, which has 50 members.
In Afghanistan, meanwhile, a district governor from Baghlan Province was assassinated by Taliban insurgents on Monday night along the Kunduz-Baghlan highway in the north of Afghanistan, officials said.
Armed insurgents stopped the white Toyota Hilux of Ahmad Soror, 30, the governor of Nahreen District. The militants then shot the official and his driver, said Munshi Abdul Majid, the governor of Baghlan Province.
The Kunduz-Baghlan highway is the major road connecting Kabul to the north of the country. It is especially heavily traveled during this week, as Afghans flock to their home villages to visit family for Id al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic fasting month.
An Afghan employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kunduz, Afghanistan.
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