Kabul, Afghanistan - Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan were skeptical on Monday about an apparent retraction by Newsweek magazine of a report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran and said U.S. pressure was behind the climb-down.
The report in Newsweek's May 9 issue sparked protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Gaza.
Newsweek said on Sunday the report might not be true.
"We will not be deceived by this," Islamic cleric Mullah Sadullah Abu Aman told Reuters in the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan, referring to the magazine's retraction.
"This is a decision by America to save itself. It comes because of American pressure. Even an ordinary illiterate peasant understands this and won't accept it."
Aman was the leader of a group of clerics who on Sunday vowed to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it handed over the military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Koran.
That call for a jihad, or holy war, still stood, he said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a close U.S. ally, said the Newsweek report had caused a public outcry that enabled enemies of Afghanistan to orchestrate violence. He was displeased with the magazine's acknowledgement of error, his spokesman said.
At the weekend, Karzai urged Washington to punish anyone found guilty of desecration. The United States has said any desecration was unacceptable and it was investigating.
Neighboring Pakistan, another close U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic militancy, reiterated that it had condemned the reported incident "in the strongest possible terms."
Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani called on Washington to conduct an inquiry and share the results with Pakistan.
Newsweek said investigators probing abuses at the U.S. 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.
Last week's bloody anti-American protests across Afghanistan were the worst since U.S. forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban for sheltering
Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.
"NOT CERTAIN"
Newsweek said on Sunday its information had come from a "knowledgeable government source" who told the magazine a military report on abuse said interrogators flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet in a bid to make detainees talk.
But Newsweek said the source later said he could not be certain he had seen an account of the incident in the military report and that it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts.
Afghans were not convinced the magazine's acknowledgment of error meant the desecration didn't happen.
"It's not acceptable now that the magazine says it's made a mistake," said Hafizullah Torab, 42, a writer and journalist in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, where the protests began last Tuesday. "No one will accept it."
In Pakistan, a religious party said it was going ahead with a call for protests on May 27.
"Newsweek is back-tracking but it's not just their report," said Ghaffar Aziz, a top official of the Jamaat-e-Islami party. "All innocent people released from U.S. custody have said on the record that there was desecration of the Koran.
In Kabul, a U.S. military spokesman said the Newsweek acknowledgement that the story might not be true had no bearing on the U.S. position.
"Any disrespect to the Koran and any other religion is not tolerated by our culture and our values," said Colonel Jim Yonts.