Ten UN workers killed in Afghanistan

Afghan police say 10 foreign workers for the United Nations have been killed when a demonstration against the desecration of the holy Qur’an turned violent.

The incident happened on Friday when a small number of furious protesters stormed the UN headquarters in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, The New York Times quoted police spokesman Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai as saying.
The armed men killed 10 foreign staff members whose nationalities were not immediately clear. Eight of the victims were shot to death while two others were beheaded after being captured.
Local medics confirmed receiving 24 wounded and five dead Afghan civilians. Other reports said that the five dead Afghans included some of the guards at the UN building.
Unconfirmed Afghan media reports said that the head of the United Nations mission in the city was among the dead.
A spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Kieran Dwyer, said the attack had occurred during a demonstration.
“We can confirm there have been casualties, including UN personnel, but the situation on the ground remains very confusing,” he said, adding that the world body’s top official in Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, was heading for Mazar-i-Sharif.
The demonstration came after the Friday Prayers in protest at the burning of a copy of the Muslim holy book by an American pastor in Florida and was attended by thousands of angry Afghans.
On March 20, Pastor Terry Jones, who had already caused an outrage worldwide by threatening to burn copies of the Qur’an last September, broke his earlier promise and burned the Qur’an after holding a mock trial at his fringe church in Gainesville.
Similar protests have been held in the western city of Herat and the capital Kabul, where demonstrators marched on to the UN building to also protest the permanent US military bases in Afghanistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has strongly condemned sacrilegious acts against the holy book of Qur’an in the United States.
The presidential office on Thursday described burning of the holy Qur’an at a Florida church as “disrespectful and abhorrent”.
“President Karzai on behalf of the Muslim people of Afghanistan and on his own behalf denounced the disrespectful and abhorrent act,” said a statement from Karzai’s office.
Karzai also called on US officials to bring those responsible for the burning of the Islamic holy book to justice.

At least half a dozen US-led foreign troops, who are experiencing some of their deadliest days in Afghanistan, have been killed in the eastern province of Kunar.
NATO said on Friday that six soldiers were killed and three others were injured in military operations against the Taliban over the past two days, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The Western military alliance did not reveal the identity or the nationality of the deceased soldiers. However, it claimed that 25 militants were also killed.
The deaths bring to at least 110 the number of the US-led foreign forces killed in Afghanistan so far this year.
Meanwhile, a Taliban spokesman claims that four foreign troops have been killed in a roadside bomb blast in the town of Ghaziabad, in Kunar Province.
He said a NATO tank was also destroyed in the explosion.
The death toll of the US-led forces in 2010 stood at 711, making the year the deadliest for foreign forces in Afghanistan since the start of the war.
The rising number of foreign casualties has stoked opposition to the Afghan war in the NATO member states as well as in other countries that have contributed troops to the mission.
NATO has admitted that the power of militants in Afghanistan is on the rise despite the presence of 150,000 US-led forces in the war-hit country.

Source: Press TV