Four dead in Afghan protests, UN complex attacked

Rock-throwing protesters attacked a UN compound, clashed with police and set tyres alight in Afghanistan Saturday, as a fifth day of protests over the burning of Korans left four dead.
Dozens were also injured as violence rocked the northern city of Kunduz, where the UN compound was attacked, in unrest that raised the death toll from the protests to 28, according to an AFP tally.
Columns of smoke hung over the city as demonstrators set tyres and traffic booths alight, witnesses said. There were fresh protests in five different Afghan provinces Saturday over the burning of the Islamic holy book — which prisoners allegedly used to pass messages — at the US airbase at Bagram near Kabul.
In Mihtarlam, in the central province of Laghman, protesters suffered gunshot wounds.
The worst violence was in Kunduz, where thousands attempted to storm the UN complex but failed to get in when police fired into the crowd at around 2:00 pm (0930 GMT), according to an AFP correspondent at the scene. Officers had so far managed to stop the crowd from entering the compound, police spokesman Sarwar Husaini told AFP, adding that reinforcements were being sent to protect the premises.
A UN spokeswoman confirmed the attack but refused to say how many UN staff were on site at the time.
Sahad Mokhtar, head of the public health department in Kunduz, said: “The report we have so far from hospitals is four killed, 56 wounded in today’s demonstrations.”
The Koran burning has inflamed anti-Western sentiment already smouldering in Afghanistan over abuses by US-led foreign troops, such as the release last month of a video showing US Marines urinating on the corpses of dead Afghans.
Denise Jeanmonod, a spokeswoman for UNAMA, the United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan, confirmed the Kunduz incident, saying that the organisation was “assessing the situation at the scene.”
But she refused to give further details “for the security of staff” at the compound, or to say how many people were there.
In Mihtarlam, hospital officials told AFP 15 protesters had been brought in with gunshot wounds.
Rallies elsewhere in Afghanistan were largely peaceful, however, authorities said.
A demonstrator in Mihtarlam, named only as Abdullah, put the crowd there at “around 2,000” and said: “The protesters turned violent and were throwing stones at the governor’s palace.