Were Islamic Religious Texts Mishandled by Afghan Coalition Forces?
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(BAGRAM, Afghanistan) — Troops on the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan have inadvertently burned Qurans and other religious materials, triggering angry protests and fears of even larger demonstrations as news of the burning spreads.
The books were mistakenly thrown out with the trash at Bagram Air Field and were on a burn pile Monday night before Afghan laborers intervened around 11:00 p.m., according to NATO and Afghan officials.
The workers doused the flames with their jackets and mineral water before marching out of Bagram in a fury, carrying with them the charred remains, according to Sabir Safar, secretary of the provincial council of Parwan, the province where Bagram is located.
By Tuesday morning, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside of Bagram and on the outskirts of Kabul. Some shot into the air, some threw rocks at the Bagram gate, and others yelled, “Die, die foreigners.” More troubling, many of them were the same people who work with foreign troops inside the base.
At one point, apparently worried that the base would be stormed, guards at the base fired rubber bullets into the crowd, according to the military.
NATO officials scrambled furiously to contain the fallout, tweeting and emailing reporters not long after the first protests began. Gen. John Allen, the commander of all foreign forces in Afghanistan, released a statement, then a video statement, followed by an interview to NATO television. In his and all of NATO officials’ communication on Tuesday, each emphasized that the burning was unintentional.
“Those materials were inadvertently given to troops for disposition and that disposition was to burn the materials. It was not a decision that was made because they were religious materials,” Allen told NATO TV. “It was not a decision that was made with respect to the faith of Islam . It was a mistake, it was an error. The moment we found out about it we immediately stopped and we intervened.”
Allen launched an investigation and promised to take steps that the same incident would not be repeated.
“This is not who we are. These are very, very isolated incidents,” Allen said. “We’ve been dying alongside the Afghans for a long time because we believe in them, we believe in their country, we want to have every opportunity to give them a bright future.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio