Foreign troops kill civilians, desecrate Quran, villagers allege

January 6, 2011

GHAZNICITY - (PAN): Villagers in southern Ghazni province on Thursday protested against foreign forces for what they claimed killing three civilians and desecrating the holy Quran during an operation in Nawar district two days ago.

They say the international forces killed three civilians during an operation on a religious school in the Qala-i-Naw village.

Ghulam Ali Akhlaqi, a resident of the village and teacher of the seminary, said the helicopters-borne forces cordoned off the village during the night time operation and shot at the three civilians and disrespected the holy book.

The protestors brought the dead bodies in a truck to the provincial capital, Ghazni city. Akhlaqi showed a bullet-riddled copy of the Quran during his address to hundreds of protesting people in the city.

He said the Quran was hit with five bullets. "There are no Taliban or insurgents in our area, but innocent people were killed on the basis of wrong information that resulted in the desecration of our holy book," the teacher said.

Nawar district chief, Khudaidad Halimi, condemned the incident, saying such incidents had bad results and must be prevented.

He said religious scholars and tribal elders would make a decision on the incident after offering funeral prayers for the victims.

"We would support whatever they decide," he said, adding a repetition of killing civilians and disrespecting religious books was dangerous because it fuels anti-foreigner sentiments.

However, NATO's media office in strongly denied the forces had killed civilians and disrespected the Quran.

In a statement on Wednesday, the alliance said some insurgents were killed in Ghazni during a joint operation with Afghan forces and one was detained.

am/ma