UN workers were among as many as 20 people reportedly killed in northern Afghanistan after a Koran burning protest turned violent.

Demonstrators stormed their compound in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, opening fire on guards and setting fires.

They had gathered in a mass protest following reports that an American pastor had recently set a copy of the Muslim holy book ablaze in Florida.

Police said the dead included three foreign members of the UN, five Nepalese United Nations guards and three Afghan protesters. Two are said to have been beheaded.

UN officials have been reported saying as many as 20 have died.

Reports said the protests were initially peaceful but turned violent.

Reports said the protests were initially peaceful but turned violent

Other reports said several hundred demonstrators were peacefully protesting against the Koran burning when the violence broke out.

Afghanistan had earlier condemned the "disrespectful and abhorrent" burning of the Koran by evangelical preacher Pastor Wayne Sapp in a Florida church on March 21, calling it an effort to incite tension between religions.

It was carried out under the supervision of Terry Jones, who planned to burn a pile of the holy books last year to mark the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York.

He aborted the move under pressure from world leaders including the US president, who earlier said he condemned the latest violence "in the strongest possible terms".

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has also condemned Friday's attacks.

Terry Jones said the incident was "tragic and criminal". "The time has come to hold Islam accountable," he said.

His supporters will only claim "look how barbaric those Afghans are!" instead of admitting they got 20 people killed.

If America was a wartorn country like Afghanistan today same thing would happen if news of bible burnings spread.

This type of reaction is not unique to Afghans.

I highly doubt it.
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Are you absolutely sure fundemtanlist Christians are not above comitting violence ? Only the fact that US is a developed first world country prevents such incidents. You will note that the word of this incident reached every muslim country. Yet it was in Afghanistan, an under developed country with poor communications where this happened. No other muslim country experienced something like this.

I agree that the pastor is a biggotted ass, don't get me wrong, it just seems odd to me that the majority of the criticism is being thrown his way instead of those who chose act on his goading. Am I missing something here, have I forgotten some very general ethical principal, or is this more a case of one party being considered a better target for vitriol due to SDN board culture? I'm assuming its the latter, though assumptions are very rarely good to make.

I don't think anyone disagrees that the "protesters" (or at least the ones responsible for this) are pretty shitty, and are indeed the ones ultimately responsible.

The cruel fact of that matter is, though (assuming that events played out as we are lead to believe by the article), that people are dead because of a dumbass pastor's dumbass, senseless stunt. It's not as if he didn't know it would stir up shit -- they held their book burning knowing full well why the last attempt last year was called off (i.e., that it was a dumbass stunt that would get people killed).

His supporters will only claim "look how barbaric those Afghans are!" instead of admitting they got 20 people killed.

Unless, of course, you want to make the argument that Muslims are too childish and immature to be able to behave like responsible adults and not murder people because of stupid shit that happens on the other side of the globe.

Just to note something. This pastor knows that extreme violence tends to happen when he starts burning Korans. So he knows people react violently. A degree of guilt is his because he knowingly presents an abrasive attitude and states beliefs that will incite violence.

If you know your neighbor is batshit crazy and that calling him a loon will cause him to eat his fingers, then you call him a loon to his face, just how innocent are you?

People who are that batshit crazy (and apparently people in this thread are arguing that Muslims are batshit crazy) will do fucked up stuff for any number of reasons. Some Muslims apparently go batshit because American women don't wear veils... should therefore force women to wear veils so Muslims don't go apeshit? Where do we draw the line?