Muslims frown on magazine apology

Sayed Salahuddin, Kabul

The report in Newsweek's May 9 issue sparked protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Gaza.

Newsweek admitted on Sunday the report might not be true.

"We will not be deceived by this," said Islamic cleric Mullah Sadullah Abu Aman, referring to the magazine's retraction.

"This is a decision by America to save itself. It comes because of American pressure. Even an ordinary illiterate peasant understands this and won't accept it."

Aman was the leader of a group of clerics who vowed to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it handed over the military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Koran.

That call for a jihad, or holy war, still stood, he said.

Newsweek originally said investigators probing abuses at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay found that interrogators "had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet."

Muslims consider the Koran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence.

Last week's bloody

anti-US protests across Afghanistan were the worst since US forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.

Newsweek said its information had come from a "knowledgeable government source" who told the magazine that a military report on abuse at Guantanamo Bay said interrogators flushed at least one copy of the Koran down a toilet in a bid to make detainees talk.

But Newsweek said the source later said he could not be certain he had seen an account of the incident in the military report and that it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts.

Afghans were unconvinced.

"It's not acceptable now that the magazine says it's made a mistake," said Hafizullah Torab, 42, a writer and journalist in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, where the anti-American protests began last Tuesday. "No one will accept it."

A spokesman for the Taliban, who denied any involvement in last week's Afghan protests, said the original report was true. "Newsweek is changing its story because of pressure from the US government," said Abdul Latif Hakimi. In Kabul, a US military spokesman said the Newsweek retraction had no bearing on the US position. "Any disrespect to the Koran and any other religion is not tolerated by our culture and our values," said Colonel Jim Yonts.

President Hamid Karzai has urged Washington to punish anyone found guilty of desecration.

In Pakistan, where a November edition of Newsweek was banned for publishing a photograph of a woman's body painted with inscriptions from the Koran, the government expressed deep concern about the Guantanamo report and said the perpetrators should be held accountable.