Last year Terry Jones, a US fundamentalist Christian leader, did threaten to burn copies of the Muslim holy book. He backed down after warnings that Islamic opinion around the world could be inflamed and the lives of US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq endangered.
But on 21 March Wayne Sapp set light to a Qur'an with Jones standing by.
UN staff killed in Afghanistan amid protests over Qur'an burning
Police spokesman in northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif says demonstrators killed at least eight UN employees
Quote:
Provincial police spokesman Sherjan Durrani said the demonstrators poured out of mosques in the city in the early afternoon, shortly after Friday prayers where worshippers had been angered by reports that a Florida pastor had burned a copy of the Qur'an.
Durrani said that while most protesters were peaceful, others were seeking targets to attack, including shops and the UN compound.
Whatever the final death toll, the incident is seen as a disaster for the UN, coming just over a week after the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, announced that Mazar-e-Sharif would be one of the first areas of the wartorn country to be transferred from Nato to Afghan government security control.
If the number of UN staff killed is high, the organisation will be obliged to consider closing down or dramatically reducing all its operations in the country – something it came perilously close to doing in late 2009 when an attack on a UN guesthouse in Kabul killed five staff.
The UN has already issued a "white city" order, which forces all staff in the country into lockdown in their compounds.
Earlier in the day hundreds of Afghans marched on the US embassy in Kabul.
Pastor of church that burned Koran calls Afghan mob killings 'very tragic' After first promising to not burn the Koran, Florida Pastor Terry Jones sat as judge at a 'trial' for the holy book last month. The Koran was 'found guilty and a copy was burned,' a church press release said. That news apparently incited the attack on a U.N. compound.
Reporting from Atlanta—
The Dove World Outreach Center is a small nondenominational church in Florida that reportedly has no more than a few dozen members. The church website describes it as a "New Testament Church — based on the Bible, the Word of God."
Its online store sells T-shirts, ball caps and coffee mugs with the phrase "Islam is of the devil." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks groups espousing intolerance, the 25-year-old church in Gainesville regularly professes anti-gay and anti-Muslim sentiments, with members at one point joining in an anti-gay rally with the Westboro Baptist Church, the group that brings signs that say "God Hates" homosexuals to military funerals.
Now news of the church's burning of a Koran has apparently incited a mob in Afghanistan to attack a U.N. compound there, killing at least eight foreign staffers.
Last year, the pastor of the church, Terry Jones, had announced he would burn a Koran on Sept. 11. The announcement drew worldwide condemnation, including remarks by President Obama, who in a nationally televised interview asked Jones to reconsider, saying the burning could lead to "serious violence" against American troops in Muslim nations.
Later, Jones said on the "Today" show that he had changed his mind, and would not burn the holy book, saying he had successfully exposed the more radical strains of Islam.
"We will definitely not burn the Koran, no," he said, adding that he would "absolutely guarantee" that there would never be a Koran burning at his church.
In an email statement released Friday, Jones did not say why he changed his mind yet again. He condemned the violence in Afghanistan, calling it "a very tragic and criminal action," and called on the U.S. government and United Nations to "call these people to justice."
By Mohammad Bashir
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan | Fri Apr 1, 2011 3:40pm EDT
(Reuters) - Afghan protesters angered by the burning of a Koran by an obscure U.S. pastor killed up to 20 U.N. staff, beheading two foreigners, when they over-ran a compound in a normally peaceful northern city on Friday in the worst ever attack on the U.N. in Afghanistan.
At least eight foreigners were among the dead after attackers took out security guards, burned parts of the compound and climbed up blast walls to topple a guard tower, said Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, a police spokesman for the northern region.
Five protesters were also killed and around 20 wounded.
The governor of Balkh province said insurgents had used the march as cover to attack the compound, in a battle that raged for several hours and raises serious questions about plans to make the city a pilot for security transfer to national forces.
"The insurgents have taken advantage of the situation to attack the U.N. compound," said Governor Ata Mohammad Noor.
He told a news conference that many in the crowd of protesters had been carrying guns. Some 27 people have already been detained over the attack, he added.
__________________
__________________
I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
The 59-year-old runs the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainsville, Florida, whose congregation numbers just a few dozen.
The church is based in a 20-acre compound where Jones lives with his wife, Sylvia, and is said to regularly patrol the grounds with a pistol strapped to his hip.
He took over the church in 1996 on the death of its founder, Dr Don Northrup, after spending 20 years as a missionary in Europe, including Germany.
His chief enemies are homosexuals and Muslims, although he insists it is only radical Islam which he opposes.
In the most recent incident, which sparked the slaughter in Afghanistan, Pastor Jones was preaching at a service at his church on March 20 when his colleage, Pastor Wayne Sapp, set a copy of the Koran alight.
However, Pastor Jones denied any responsibility for the riot in Mazar-e Sharif, in which around 20 people died, including two who were reportedly beheaded, in what is the worst incident of its kind in recent years.
He said he was "absolutely not responsible" for the atrocities, and tried to move the conversation to Muslims, saying: "We must take a serious, serious look at Islam. It's a violent religion that promotes acts of violence. I believe we need to bring this before the UN."
It is not clear how it took over a week for the burning to come to light but, in the past, members of the media have refrained from publicising his activities for fear of inadvertently spreading his message.
It is the latest and by far the most severe incident in which the pastor has been involved.
__________________
I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
Linear Mode
