ASADABAD, Afghanistan, 14 October 2007 — Hundreds of angry villagers demonstrated in eastern Afghanistan yesterday alleging that US troops had burned the Holy Qur’an, a charge the US-led coalition rejected. Residents of Kunar province blocked a road for several hours before parliamentarians, in their home districts for the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr, were able to calm the crowd, an AFP reporter said.

The protesters alleged coalition forces had torn and burned a Qur’an copy during an overnight raid in which they had arrested four men. The reporter saw torn pages of the Muslim holy book in the village of Kodu, which is about 20 kilometers south of the provincial capital Asadabad.

The owner of the house where two men were arrested said the soldiers had burst into his house in the early hours of the morning and gone through his books. “They tied up and took two of my sons with them,” the man, Char Gul, said. “They went through our books, spread them on the floor. They tore and set ablaze a Holy Qur’an and they took another Qur’an with them.”

An elder, Haji Mumtaz, said the raid started at midnight and lasted until early morning. “They took them with four people and they desecrated the Holy Qur’an,” he said. The coalition, which is rounding up Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants, confirmed there had been an operation and that four men were detained but rejected the allegations about the Qur’an.

“The coalition force involved in this incident didn’t desecrate any religious articles,” said coalition spokesman Army Maj. Chris Belcher. “We respect all religions and treat the holy articles with the respect they deserve.” Afghanistan is a deeply devout country and allegations of abuse of Islam have in the past touched off protests that have turned deadly.

In April 2005, thousands of people took to the streets to protest allegations in Newsweek magazine that the Qur’an was desecrated at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. Violence erupted at one demonstration, leaving at least 15 people dead and 120 wounded. Newsweek later retracted the story, which alleged that a Qur’an copy had been flushed down a toilet.

The Kunar province police chief, Abdul Jalal Jalal, said it was not clear what had happened in the latest incident, and authorities had sent a delegation to the area to find out.

“The Americans have not come here to desecrate our religion and disrespect our culture,” he told AFP. “But if anything like this has happened, we hope that the authorities of the foreign forces penalize the perpetrators.”

Meanwhile, a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 29 in Afghanistan yesterday in an attack during the Eid Al-Fitr that was similar to scores of others by Taleban. The attack in the town of Spin Boldak in the southern province of Kandahar came as President Hamid Karzai made a short visit the provincial capital, less than 100 kilometers away.

The bomber was on a motorbike and blew himself up in a crowded part of the town as people were shopping, Kandahar province police chief Sayed Aqa Safed told AFP. His target appeared to have been two pick-ups filled with policemen parked in the busy street.