KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Shouting “Death to America,” demonstrators angry over the alleged desecration of the Quran at Guantanamo Bay smashed car and shop windows and stoned a passing convoy of U.S. soldiers Wednesday in eastern Afghanistan. Police opened fire on the protesters, killing four and injuring at least 71.
The U.S. troops fired into the air before quickly leaving the area in Jalalabad, near the Pakistan border, provincial intelligence chief Sardar Shah told The Associated Press. It was the biggest outpouring of anti-American sentiment since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Mobs also attacked the Pakistani consulate along with the offices of two U.N. agencies and a Swedish relief organization. No foreigners were reported hurt and witnesses said police and government troops had restored order by early afternoon.
“There is a lot of damage to the city, they have burned a lot of things,” Shah said. “These are the enemies of peace and stability in Afghanistan who don’t want people to be able to get on with their lives in peace.”
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An Associated Press Television News cameraman said the crowds grew larger and wilder after the firing and the streets were deserted of traffic. Mobs pelted a government office and the local television station with rocks and tore down posters of President Hamid Karzai.
Demonstrations began Tuesday, when protesters burned an effigy of President Bush over a report in Newsweek magazine that interrogators at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed Qurans on toilets to rattle suspects, and in at least one case “flushed a holy book down the toilet.”
At the Pentagon, spokesman Bryan Whitman said Wednesday that the allegation will be investigated.
But who will investigate the investigators?