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Reports noted fourteen people were killed including seven UN staffers in Mazar-e- Shariff on April 2 during protests over the burning of Koran in the United States last month. The Koran burning incident took place in Florida where Pastor Terry Jones supervised the desecration of the holy text. The US President Barak Obama has expressed condolences to the families of those killed and termed the desecration as bigotry.1
In another incident, armed men launched an attack on a police training centre just outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. A police official said there were three attackers armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. It would be worth noting that Kandahar is the de facto capital of southern Afghanistan and seen as a traditional Taliban heartland area.2
In other developments, reported that killing of UN staff in city of Mazar-i-Sharif has raised alarms over transition of security to Afghan forces in three months. This happened in the wake of protests over burning of Koran in the US. Although peace has been restored but residents fear that Afghan forces are not ready to take over from the western alliances in the country.3
- 1. “Afghanistan: Koran protests in Kandahar and Jalalabad”, BBC, April 3, 2011 at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12949975
- 2. “Attack on Afghan police centre in Kandahar’’, Dawn, April 7, 2011 at http://www.dawn.com/2011/04/07/attack-on-afghan-police-centre-in-kandaha...
- 3. “ UN killings raise Afghan transition fears”, Dawn, April 9 at http://www.dawn.com/2011/04/09/un-killings-raise-afghan-transition-fears...