Kabul, Afghaniatan — The main body of Afghan Muslim clerics called on the United States yesterday to apologize and punish those responsible for desecrating the Qur’an at its Guantanamo Bay prison, an issue that sparked bloody riots in Afghanistan. The US military released details this month about five cases in which the holy book was kicked, stepped on, soaked in water, and in one instance, splashed with a guard’s urine falling through an air vent at the military prison in Cuba.
America’s top general, Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said the military is unlikely to hold court-martial proceedings in the two or three cases of deliberate mishandling of the Qur’an at Guantanamo Bay.
Afghan Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari, head of the influential national clerics’ body, the Ulema Council, said it had passed a two-point resolution on the issue yesterday. “The Ulema Council resolved that the United States and those who have done this should apologize to the whole Muslim community, and the ones who have done this should be punished so that others don’t do this again,” he told Reuters.
Meanwhile, militants detonated a roadside bomb near a US Humvee in Afghanistan yesterday, injuring four American soldiers and an interpreter in the second bloody attack on US forces here in as many days. The attack in southeastern Ghazni province comes after a suicide car bomb assault on a US convoy in nearby Kandahar on Monday injured another four soldiers, and amid a spike in violence blamed on the ousted Taleban regime.
In the latest attack, the soldiers were conducting a routine patrol in support of an operation near Ghazni city when the “improvised explosive device” blew up near their armored vehicle, according to a US military statement. None of the wounds appeared to be life-threatening, the statement said, adding US helicopters had airlifted the victims for medical treatment. “Terrorists who often pay impoverished Afghans to detonate these devices for them are behind these brutal attacks,” said US military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara.
The Taleban militia claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack in Kandahar, although presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said yesterday the suicide attacker was believed to be a foreign militant. Suicide attacks are rare in Afghanistan and authorities often blame them on foreigners, especially those from the Arab-dominated Al-Qaeda network.
In another case, authorities have detected 30 cases of cholera among more than 2,500 instances of acute diarrhea in the Afghan capital Kabul, but there appears to be no danger of an epidemic despite four deaths, officials said.
The cholera cases were detected in the past three weeks and the government had taken immediate action to ensure water supplies were kept clean by chlorination, said Abdullah Fahim, an adviser to the Ministry of Public Health. He said four deaths had been reported, one caused by diarrhea and at least two of the others by cholera.