The top US commander in Afghanistan has warned that troops’ lives will be in danger if an American church sticks to its plan to burn copies of the Koran.
Gen David Petraeus said the action could cause problems “not just in Kabul, but everywhere in the world”.
Pastor Terry Jones, of the Dove World Outreach Center, plans to put copies of the holy book in a bonfire to mark this week’s anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
There have already been protests in Afghanistan and Indonesia.
“Start Quote
We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam”
End Quote Pastor Terry Jones
* Is mosque debate fanning flames?
The US embassy in Kabul issued a statement condemning the plans by the non-denominational church in Gainesville, Florida.
“It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort,” Gen Petraeus said in a statement to US media. “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,” added Gen Petraeus, who heads a 150,000-strong Nato force against a Taliban-led insurgency.
Lt Gen William Caldwell, the commander of the Nato training mission in Afghanistan, told CNN: “It’s their holy book, so when somebody says that they’re going to destroy that and cause a desecration to something that’s very sacred to them, it’s already stirred up a lot of discussion and concern amongst the people.”
In Kabul on Monday, about 500 protesters chanted “long live Islam” and “death to America” as they set fire to an effigy of Mr Jones.
The controversy comes at a time of already heated debate in the US over a proposal to build a mosque and Islamic cultural centre two streets from Ground Zero, site of the 9/11 attacks, in New York.
In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Jones acknowledged Gen Petraeus’s concerns, but added: “We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam. We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats.”
The planned protest by Mr Jones’s previously little-known 50-member Florida church, whose website labels Islam “violent and oppressive”, has prompted protests elsewhere, too.
Thousands of mostly Muslim demonstrators rallied around Indonesia last weekend.
Claims that US soldiers have desecrated the Koran in both Afghanistan and Iraq have caused bloodshed in the past.
There were deadly protests in Afghanistan in 2008, when it emerged that a US soldier deployed to Iraq riddled a copy of the holy book with bullets.
And further lives were lost in Afghan riots in 2005 when Newsweek magazine printed a story alleging that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet.
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