JALALABAD, May 12: International aid agencies evacuated workers from Jalalabad on Thursday as outrage at the defilement of the holy Quran by US soldiers turned into the biggest anti-Washington protests in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. Angry Afghans shouting ‘Death to America’ poured onto the streets of Kabul itself for the first time on Thursday and protests at the religious slur have now broken out in 10 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

The unrest left three more people dead during the day.

Seven people have been killed so far and 76 injured during three days of violent demonstrations, all of them in clashes with security forces and police in conservative towns east of Kabul.

The protests were sparked by allegations in Newsweek magazine that interrogators at the US military detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had desecrated the holy Quran to rattle Muslim prisoners.

The situation remained tense in Jalalabad, where four people died on Wednesday after police opened fire on thousands of demonstrators who burned down humanitarian organization offices and the Pakistani consulate.

Two people were wounded when security forces opened fire on a gathering of 100 villagers in Khagyani, a district just northwest of the city.

Afghan troops and police cleared roadblocks set up by several groups of between 100 and 200 people just outside Jalalabad along the highway towards the Pakistan border.

Vehicles belonging to the fledgling national army were stoned by small groups of demonstrators and an eyewitness also heard gunshots, but saw no casualties.

Although Jalalabad’s city centre was quiet and shops were open, it looked like a war zone, with broken glass as well as burnt tyres and wood littered everywhere. Some shopkeepers were repairing their premises.

However students took to the streets of the capital in a third day of protests.

They shouted slogans calling on US President George Bush to apologize to Muslim countries and saying that proposals for permanent American bases on Afghan soil could damage the country’s independence.

A similar demonstration started at the Polytechnic Institute, northeast of Kabul, where protesters torched a US flag. Police were at the scene but there were no Afghan or US-led troops present. “It makes one laugh how ignorant US soldiers are,” student Mohammed Shasiq said at the university protest.

Foreign workers whose offices were targeted on Wednesday were evacuated from Jalalabad in fear of further protests.

The United Nations said it was withdrawing non-essential staff from the city after two of its guest houses were torched, while workers in the Pakistani consulate were forced to take refuge in a nearby house.

Pactec, a transport organization for humanitarian workers, evacuated 126 people from Jalalabad on Wednesday on United Nations’ aircraft and its own planes.

The offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross were severely damaged and equipment was destroyed or looted in the riots, the group’s communication officer in Kabul, Olivier Moeckli, said.

Nine foreigners were evacuated and its 115 local staff were at home, he said, adding: “Everybody is unharmed. We will now assess the damage and the situation, and wait until it gets safe”.

Anja de Beer, spokesman for ACBAR, the main international coordination body for non-governmental organizations in Afghanistan, said all foreign workers were advised to evacuate from Jalalabad.

“Nobody expected the demonstration to go out of control. NGO and UN offices are very visible in the city. But offices were also looted: it might be some foreign elements, who have nothing to do with the demonstration,” de Beer added.

The French embassy in Kabul said seven French workers were evacuated from Jalalabad.

More than 500 detainees, most captured in Afghanistan or Pakistan following the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, are currently held as ‘enemy combatants’ at the US naval base and detention centre in Guantanamo. —AFP