Muslim clerics threat to call for holy war against US

A GROUP of Afghan Muslim clerics threatened yesterday to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it hands over military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Koran.

The warning came after 16 Afghans were killed and more than 100 hurt last week in the worst anti-US protests across the country since American forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.

The clerics in the northeastern province of Badakhshan said they wanted President George Bush to handle the matter honestly "and hand the culprits over to an Islamic country for punishment."

"If that does not happen within three days, we will launch a jihad against America," said the statement referring to Muslim holy war, after a meeting in the main mosque in the provincial capital, Faizabad.

The statement was read out by Abdul Fatah Fayeq, the top judicial official in the mountainous, conservative province near the borders of Tajikistan and China. Newsweek magazine said in its May 9 edition 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.

The United States has tried to calm global Muslim outrage, saying disrespect for the Koran was abhorrent and would not be tolerated.

Another group of clerics in the north demanded punishment for those responsible for desecrating the Koran but did not call for holy war.

The protests began in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Tuesday. Violence broke out there on Wednesday and there were clashes in several other places on Thursday and Friday. Scattered protests on Saturday were mostly peaceful.

While some Afghan analysts say Muslim rage over the desecration report sparked the protests, not hatred of America, there is growing resentment of US troops.

The United States command a foreign force in Afghanistan of about 18,300, fighting Taliban insurgents and hunting militant leaders, including bin Laden.