At least nine demonstrators were shot dead in violent protests across Afghanistan over the burning of the holy Quran at a US-run military base. — Photo by AFP

KABUL: At least nine demonstrators were shot dead and dozens wounded on Wednesday in violent protests across Afghanistan over the burning of the holy Quran at a US-run military base, officials said.

The Afghan interior ministry blamed at least one of the deaths on “foreign guards of Camp Phoenix”, a US military base in eastern Kabul attacked by protesters, but most were attributed by local officials to clashes with police.

The ministry said it would investigate all the deaths, blaming some of them on “security guards” at unnamed foreign bases. A spokesman said it was not known whether the guards were Afghans or foreigners.

In Kabul and in provinces to the east, north and south of the capital, furious Afghans took to the streets screaming “Death to America”, throwing rocks and setting fire to shops and vehicles as gunshots rang out.

In the eastern city of Jalalabad, students set fire to an effigy of President Barack Obama, and the US embassy in Kabul went into lockdown.

The US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Allen, apologised and ordered an investigation, admitting that religious materials, including copies of the holy Quran “were inadvertently taken to an incineration facility”.

Gen Allen and US Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday to apologise again for the incident at Bagram airbase north of Kabul, the president’s office said.

President Karzai urged the US military to speed up a transfer to Afghan control of the controversial US-controlled prison at Bagram, sometimes known as Afghanistan’s Guantanamo Bay.

Two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the military removed copies of the Quran from the prison because inmates were suspected of using the holy book to pass messages to each other.

The joint Nato probe with the Afghan government would examine why the books were removed and taken to a burn pit, a Nato spokesman said.

Afghan workers “pulled material out that was partly charred and we have seen copies of (holy) Quran that were partly charred,” he said.—AFP