Washed It!

A violent protest that left dozens of people injured in the Afghan capital Wednesday points to concerted efforts by the Taliban to keep alive the controversy over an American pastor’s discarded plans to burn copies of the Koran, Afghan authorities said.

White Taliban flags flew above a crowd of about 800 people who burned tires, shouted anti-American slogans and pelted security forces with stones. Police fired assault rifles into the air to break up the early-morning protest on the outskirts of Kabul.

At least 35 police officers and about 15 demonstrators were injured in the melee, the Interior Ministry said.

The demonstrations, which have persisted for days after the abandoning of plans by a small Florida church to burn the Muslim holy book, suggest an orchestrated campaign that could continue for some time, perhaps disrupting Saturday’s parliamentary elections.

The Taliban movement has already threatened to attack voters and polling places, and some districts are considered too dangerous for balloting to take place. The Taliban website this week carried a fresh denunciation of the Koran-burning plan, calling it part of a larger Western assault on Islam.

Afghan authorities say the insurgents are seeking to tap into the outrage generated by the church’s threat to whip up fury against Western forces and President Hamid Karzai. Wednesday’s rally featured fiery speeches denouncing the Afghan government and the presence of foreign forces, which now number about 150,000.

The organizing of a protest in the capital itself appears to mark an escalation from previous demonstrations, most of which have taken place in rural areas.

The demonstrations’ organizers are also able to exploit the fact that in a country where illiteracy is widespread, many people were unaware that Florida pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville did not carry out his plans, which had been condemned by the Obama administration and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of Western troops in Afghanistan.

Gen. Zahir Khan, head of the crime investigation department for the Kabul police, said that at this point the threatened Koran-burning was little more than a pretext to rally anti-government sentiment.

“This was a very violent protest,” he said. “And the Taliban were in the crowd.”

laura.king@latimes.com
Dozens injured in Kabul protest over Koran-burning threat

Five U.S. troops were killed by roadside bombs and insurgent fire in southern and eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the latest casualties in a particularly bloody spell that has left 12 service members dead in two days, and 19 since Saturday.

Meanwhile, on the southern outskirts of the capital, Kabul, a gunman opened fire on a busload of Afghan Supreme Court clerks, killing three and wounding 12, the Interior Ministry reported.

Assailants on two motorcycles halted the bus Tuesday morning in the Musayi district, an area where insurgents are active, court spokesman Abdul Malik Kamawi said. One gunman then boarded the bus and opened fire with an automatic weapon, killing two people, Kamawi said. A third died later in a hospital.

“We’re trying to find out who they were. For now, we can only say they are the enemies of the Afghan people,” Kamawi said.

Suspicion immediately fell on Taliban insurgents who have waged a continuous campaign against Afghan government officials and institutions and have stepped up attacks in the run-up to Sept. 18 elections for the lower house of parliament. Candidates and their aides have been threatened, kidnapped and killed, and many voters say they plan to stay away from the polls for fear of violence.

In Tuesday’s attacks, NATO said four troops were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, while a fifth died in a battle with insurgents in the country’s south. No other details were given and the service members were not identified by name, as is standard procedure.

The deaths came a day after roadside bombs killed eight other members of the international force in Afghanistan, including seven U.S. troops, NATO said Tuesday. A 20-year-old Estonian soldier was also killed.

The deaths bring this month’s total to 55, including a Marine killed in fighting in the volatile southern province of Helmand on Friday whose death was not announced until Monday night. That is still fewer than the 66 killed in July, the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

Almost all of the recent coalition deaths have come in southern and eastern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is most deeply entrenched and where fighting has been heaviest.

Those areas are also closest to the mountainous border with Pakistan, where insurgents maintain safe havens and training bases to instruct recruits, including foreign fighters, who are later infiltrated into Afghanistan.

NATO commanders have warned casualties will mount as coalition and Afghan forces enter areas under longtime Taliban control, particularly in the hard-line Islamic movement’s spiritual heartland of Kandahar province. The NATO force swelled this month to more than 140,000 — including 100,000 Americans — with the arrival of the last of the reinforcements that President Barack Obama ordered to Afghanistan in a bid to turn the tide of the nearly nine-year war.

Also Tuesday, NATO also said its forces, working with Afghan army and police, had killed 19 insurgents and captured five in a major air assault on the village of Omar in the eastern province of Kunar.

Ground forces taking part in the assault that began Monday uncovered insurgent fighting positions, along with weapons caches and ammunition stockpiles inside the village, it said.

The coalition also said it killed two insurgents and wounded a third in an airstrike Monday on a Taliban commander in charge of logistics in Kandahar, including the coordination of homemade bomb attacks.

A number of Taliban and allied Haqqani Network commanders were also detained in operations Monday, including one recently returned from teaching bomb-making techniques in Pakistan, NATO said.

In Zabul province bordering Kandahar, insurgents on Monday night ambushed a convoy carrying food and other supplies, killing two private security guards and wounding five others, provincial government spokesman Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar said.
12 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2 days

All hail inexperience — the less familiarity with politics the better, no matter the party or state.

“The support of the voters of Connecticut isn’t bestowed by the establishment or the pundits or the media. It isn’t a birthright,” former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon said after winning the GOP senatorial nomination in her first run for office.

Two mountain ranges away, appointed Sen. Michael Bennett of Colorado, tried to express the same sentiment after dispatching his rival, a former state house speaker. “This election is the first time my name has ever been on the ballot,” said Bennett, who enjoyed President Barrack Obama’s support in the bitter Democratic primary.