After five days of intense protesting across Afghanistan, NATO has recalled all personnel working in its Kabul ministries. The move comes on the heels of reports that two U.S. officials — allegedly one colonel and one major — were shot and killed at the Afghan Interior Ministry building this morning. A NATO spokeswoman would not confirm the rankings of the two servicemen, but did confirm that they were killed by someone who turned a weapon on them. She declined to comment when asked if the killer was a member of the Afghan military or police force. In an emailed statement to the press, the Afghan Taliban claimed credit for the killings, saying they were in retaliation for the burning of Korans at Bagram Air Base earlier this week. (image courtesy of Reuters/Ahmad Masood) source
I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident. I extend to you and the Afghan people my sincere apologies. … The error was inadvertent. I assure you that we will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, to include holding accountable those responsible.President Obama • Apologizing to Afghan president Hamid Karzai about the Koran-burning incident earlier this week, which has sparked widespread demonstration in the country and led to the deaths of at least eight people — the most recent of which happened when a man, wearing an Afghan Army uniform, opened fire on two coalition soldiers, killing them. This is not going to be an easy one for coalition forces to get past.
Advice of the day: Disposing of Korans should be done with the utmost care. Especially if you’re NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and you’re in Afghanistan. And apologize quickly if you do not follow these common sense standards, like so: “ISAF personnel at Bagram Air Base improperly disposed of a large number of Islamic religious materials which included Korans,” said Gen. John R. Allen. “When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities.” There are photos of burned/damaged Korans floating around the wires. There are some here, but note we’re only linking this. (photo by Massoud Hossaini/AFP/Getty Images)
Blood continues to flow over Terry Jones: Yesterday, we mentioned the deaths in Afghanistan that had occurred when a protest against Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones boiled over. Sadly, the violence has spread: 9 more have been killed in Kandahar, ostensibly because Jones burned several Islamic holy texts on March 20th. Not to belabor our earlier point, but it seems worthwhile to balance disdain for Jones’ self-serving and gross bigotry with some basic honesty about what it’s caused- namely, that a danger intrinsic to any religion that takes itself very seriously is that it can cause overreactions to slights against it. The deaths of 20 people in 2 days because somebody on the other side of the planet burned some books is a tragic example. source
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