Hundreds of Afghans kept up the angry demonstrations, some
apparently unaware that pastor Terry Jones had dropped his plans. Two
protesters were shot and killed in the eastern province of Logar, a district
official said, taking the death toll since last Friday to three.
The furor over Jones's plan overshadowed the lead-up to
commemorations of the September 11 hijacked airliner attacks on the United
States.
Other parts of the Muslim world saw protests last week but
Sunday's violence was confined to Afghanistan, six days before a parliamentary
election, which the Taliban has vowed to disrupt.
The United Nations' top diplomat in Afghanistan has said the
protests risk delaying the election and warned that the Taliban, which has
vowed to continue fighting until nearly 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan
have left, could try to exploit popular anger over the issue.
Poor security is already a major concern ahead of the vote,
with more than 1,000 polling centers out of a planned 6,835 to remain closed.
On Sunday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) said a Taliban commander who had been plotting rocket attacks on
polling stations had been killed in eastern Nangarghar a day earlier.
The election is seen as a key test of stability in
Afghanistan before President Barack Obama conducts a strategy review of the
increasingly unpopular war in December.
Angry protesters chanting "Death to America" and
"Death to Christians" clashed with security forces in Logar, south of
the capital, on Sunday.
Seven demonstrators were wounded, one seriously, when Afghan
security forces opened fire to disperse hundreds of protesters marching to
Pul-e-Alam, the capital of Logar, officials said.
Mohammad Rahim Amin, chief of Baraki Barak district just
west of Pul-e-Alam, said two of the wounded died later in hospital.
The protesters threatened to attack foreign military bases.
"The governor must give us an assurance that the church
is not going to burn the Koran, otherwise we will attack foreign troop bases in
our thousands," protester Mohammad Yahya said.
Some of the protesters seemed not to know that Jones had
called off his plan. Many in impoverished Afghanistan have limited access to
news outlets and the Internet.
Major Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for ISAF, said it was
aware of more protests in Logar on Sunday and estimated the crowd at about 100,
some wielding sticks and throwing stones.
Four protesters were wounded in Logar on Saturday, a day
after one was shot dead when an angry crowd attacked a German-run base in the
northeast, one of many protests across the country.
Protests had eased by later on Sunday.
