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Ten people died Monday and more than 40 injured in the northern Nigerian city of Bauchi following clashes between Muslims and Christians over the supposed desecration of the Koran, a Red Cross official said. The official however pointed out that the violence was not linked to Saturday's riots in northern Nigeria over the publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammed by a Danish newspaper which claimed at least 24 lives. "The incident started at 10 am (0900 GMT) today at the Government Comprehensive High School," after a teacher allegedly confiscated a Muslim religious document a female student was reading in class,"...

Big media was clearly on the defensive in 2005. Dan Rather left the CBS News anchor desk under a heavy cloud while other executives were fired in the wake of Memogate. The use of anonymous sources put journalists like Judith Miller and the NY Times in an uncomfortable spotlight. Newsweek's erroneous report that US Marines desecrated a Koran touched off a firestorm of deadly protests around the world. CNN news chief Eason Jordan was forced to resign over comments at an international forum. And an Al-Jazeera reporter was even convicted for his links to Al-Qaida. In each controversy, bloggers successfully...

Desecration of Holy Quran: Mob burns down churches in Sangla Hill Staff Report SHEIKHUPURA: A crowd of about 1,500 protesters attacked and burned two churches on Saturday following reports that a Christian man had desecrated the Holy Quran, police said. A school, a student hostel and the home of a priest were also torched in the incident near the town of Sangla Hill, said Ali Asghar Dogar, a police official. The attacks came a day after a local Muslim resident accused Yousaf Masih, a Christian, of burning a one-room Islamic school along with copies of the Holy Quran. Dogar said...

Islamabad: Tension prevailed near the eastern city of Lahore where an angry mob set ablaze three churches, Christian schools and residence of the local bishop, following reports that a youth allegedly desecrated the Holy Quran. Around fifty protestors were arrested and dozens injured in a baton-charge by police personnel when the mob went on a rampage following reports that one Yousuf Masih had allegedly burnt a large number of copies of the Holy Quran last night in Sangla Hill locality, Pakistan's NNI news agency quoted eye witnesses as saying. Masih, who was reportedly caught by the locals, later escaped.

LAHORE , Pakistan (AP) - Hundreds of Muslims attacked and burned two churches in Pakistan on Saturday after reports that a Christian man had desecrated Islam's holy book. No one was injured in the blazes. A school, student hostel and the home of a priest were also torched by the crowd of about 1,500 Muslims near the town of Sangla Hill, about 80 miles northeast of Lahore, said police official Ali Asghar Dogar. The attacks were being investigated. About two dozen people had been arrested, Dogar said. The fires came a day after a local Muslim resident accused a Christian...

"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001? Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they? And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was "desecrated" when an overworked American soldier kicked it...

Every time I turn around, another anti-war person is saying how much he or she "supports" the troops. No matter how vicious the attack on the policy in Iraq or the Afghanistan situation or the proactive strategy to confront worldwide terror, it always seems there's a "support the troops" caveat at the end of the blistering dissent. Okay, fine, opposing the Iraq war doesn't mean disrespect for the military, that's true. But the benefit of the doubt only goes so far. Now there's a litmus test, a way to expose the folks who really don't support the troops no matter...

Newsweek -- lessons of 'Qurangate' Commentary: Editor Mark Whitaker reflects on the crisis By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch (In May, Newsweek Magazine reported, and subsequently retracted, a story saying that the American military had desecrated the Quran at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The brief item touched off an international furor and became the most electrifying media story of 2005. In the first of a two-part Media Web series, Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker reflects on the crisis. On Monday, Newsweek Worldwide Publisher Greg Osberg discusses the business angle -- and the state of magazine publishing) When I interviewed Whitaker, 48, for more...

LAHORE: Residents in Raiwind staged protests and disrupted life in the area after another Quran was desecrated in the area on Wednesday morning – the second this week. Police lodged a first information report (FIR) against unidentified individual(s) for desecrating a copy of the Quran in a mosque toilet. The FIR was registered on the complaint of Bashir Ahmad, the qari of Masjid Gulzar-e-Habib. Police said that a copy of the Holy Quran had been taken from the mosque and thrown in the toilet. Muhammad Hanif, who lives next to the mosque, found the Quran in the toilet at around...

Whilst opining in his boyishly incomprehensible way, Olbermann claims it is the Bush administration's fault that Newsweek ran their meretricious story about Korans being flushed down toilets at Guantanamo.   To illustrate his brilliant point, he reminds us of the Bush administration's complicity in not shooting down the forged "Killian Memos" of Rathergate fame:         June 1, 2005 | 3:54 p.m. ET More questions than answers (Keith Olbermann) [W]eren't those members of the military or the government with whom Newsweek vetted the plausibility of its item, honor-bound to say "you can't print this"?Or would somebody rather play politics with this? The...

(CAIR-MD/VA) has been told by Muslim community leaders in Blacksburg, Va., that a recent incident involving burned Qurans left outside a local mosque was not bias-motivated. According to those leaders, the Qurans were burned accidentally...

The grievance industry went into overdrive last month when burned Korans were reportedly discovered at a local mosque in southwest Virginia. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations issued an immediate press release on June 16 calling for "Americans of all faiths to obtain and read the Quran after burned copies of Islam's revealed text were found" in a shopping bag at the front door of the Islamic Center of Blacksburg. Repent, all ye infidels! Incensed CAIR officials contacted the FBI and pressured authorities to treat the incident as possibly "bias-related." CAIR-MD/VA Director of Civil Rights Shama Farooq lectured that "A...

MIAMI -- Attorneys for two terrorism suspects tied to an alleged al-Qaida dirty bomb suspect are asking for the dismissal of a federal indictment against them based on a jailer's mishandling of a Quran and intimidating jail cell searches that removed handwritten papers in Arabic. The defense claims the seizures from the cells of Adhan Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi in May and June amount to government misconduct and an unconstitutional intrusion on trial preparation.

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Police are investigating whether a hate crime took place when someone left a bag of burned Korans in front of an Islamic center. Members of the Islamic Center of Blacksburg were shocked when they arrived at the building for Saturday prayers and found a plastic shopping bag filled with burned copies of the Koran at the front door. "It is a shame that people are so ignorant," said Idris Adjerid, 20, a member of the center. Mr. Adjerid told the Roanoke Times that he has attended the center since 1997 and nothing like this has happened...

BLACKSBURG - An official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Thursday that his office has not taken on an investigation into burned Qurans left at the door of a Blacksburg mosque over the weekend. Kevin Foust, who supervises the Roanoke FBI office, said Thursday that his staff is working with the Blacksburg Police Department and U.S. Attorney John Brownlee's office "to determine whether or not we will open a federal investigation" into the incident. In the meantime, "we have offered any resources we have available" to help Blacksburg police in their investigation, Foust said. Members of the Al-Hedaya mosque,...

Burned Qurans Left at Va. Muslim Center By Associated Press June 16, 2005, 9:52 PM EDT BLACKSBURG, Va. -- A bag stuffed with burned Qurans was left in front of an Islamic center, shocking members when they arrived for prayers. The torched copies of the Muslim holy book were inside a plastic shopping bag, members of the Islamic Center of Blacksburg said. They said the bag had been placed at the center's front door sometime before Saturday prayers. "It is a shame that people are so ignorant," member Idris Adjerid said. Kevin Foust, the agent in charge of the Roanoke...

Burned texts left at Islamic Center Blacksburg police have not determined if the Qurans were burned as a hate crime. By Joe Eaton 381-1665 The Roanoke Times BLACKSBURG - Members of the Islamic Center of Blacksburg were stunned when they arrived at the building for prayers Saturday afternoon. Outside the building, a plastic shopping bag filled with burned copies of the Quran sat in front of the door. Blacksburg police say they do not have any leads on who left the burned religious books, but they are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime. On Tuesday afternoon, as a...

Observers of the printed page, the White House, and anyone interested in responsibility in the media were rightly outraged that Newsweek recently botched a report about Koran desecration by the U.S. military and started rioting in Afghanistan that ended lives and injured many. It has long been known, but apparently not often reported by the mainstream media, that in places like Saudi Arabia, Bibles are not flushed at airport customs but are shredded. And if you are carrying enough of them, you may well receive 70 lashes if not execution. Little is heard publicly about such contempt. The reason? It...

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's kleptocrat strongman, destroyed a mosque the other day. It was in Hatcliffe Extension, a shantytown on the edge of Harare, razed by the "police." Mr. Mugabe is an equal-opportunity razer: He also bulldozed a Catholic-run Aids center. The government destroyed the town to drive the locals into the countryside to live on land stolen from white farmers. Quite how that's meant to benefit any of those involved or the broader needs of Zimbabwe is beyond me, but then I'm no expert in Afro-Marxist economic theory.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's kleptocrat strongman, destroyed a mosque the other day. It was in Hatcliffe Extension, a shantytown on the edge of Harare razed by the "police." Mugabe is an equal-opportunity razer: He also bulldozed a Catholic-run AIDS center. The government destroyed the town in order to drive the locals out into the countryside to live on the land stolen from white farmers. Quite how that's meant to benefit any of the parties involved or the broader needs of Zimbabwe is beyond me, but then I'm no expert in Afro-Marxist economic theory.

Indian Muslims ask a boy to urinate on a U.S. flag during a protest against the alleged desecration of the Koran during a demonstration in Calcutta May 20, 2005. (Yahoo News Photos)

All the headlines about "Abuse of the Koran at Gitmo" are absolutely accurate. Brig. Gen. Jay Hood's internal investigation has uncovered some shocking incidents. On at least six occasions, Korans were ripped up. They were urinated on three times, and attempts were made to flush them down the toilet at least three other times. Why aren't millions of Muslims rioting in response to these defilements? Because the perpetrators were prisoners, not guards. As John Hinderaker notes on weeklystandard.com, the most serious desecrations of the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility were committed by the Muslim inmates themselves. You'd never...

Maybe the U.S. Government shouldn't be in the revival business at Guantanamo in the first place. Why shouldn't the prophet's followers furnish their own sawdust? The official line of the Pander Corps appears to be, different strokes for different folks. A crucifix in urine, the Virgin Mary in elephant dung, is High Art, but if someone accidentally steps on a Koran it's time to haul out the guillotine. The Pentagon's generals are investigating accusations that certain officers at the Air Force Academy have been conducting Christian revival meetings among the cadets. If they determine that the Air Force is instructing...

Flushing the Koran or Reason Down the Toilet? By Edward Hudgins Perhaps Newsweek did get it wrong; an American interrogator did not flush a copy of the Koran down a toilet in order to get information from a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. But apparently there were abuses of Islam's holy book, some intentional, some accidental. Many Muslims have strict rules concerning its handling. The Bush administration angrily denied the flushing charge and lambasted Newsweek for its negligence. It certainly didn't endorse desecration. In fact, the reason there were opportunities for abuse is that the administration...

JTF-GTMO-JDOG-CO 19 JAN 03 MEMORANDUM FOR All personnel, JDOG SUBJECT: Camp Delta Interim SOP Modification: Inspecting/Handling Detainee Korans Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) 1. General. The purpose of this SOP is to provide guidance and set specific procedures for the handling and inspecting of detainee Korans. 2. Intent. To ensure the safety of the detainees and MPs while respecting the cultural dignity of the Korans thereby reducing the friction over the searching the Korans. JTF-GTMO personnel directly working with detainees will avoid handling or touching the detainee’s Koran whenever possible. When military necessity does require the Koran to be search, the...

A week after the US Defense Department acknowledged that guards at Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba defiled several Korans, MK Ahmad Tibi joined Palestinian security detainees and Muslim clerics protesting Tuesday claiming that prison guards at Megiddo Prison in the north defaced the holy book during a routine cell search. Palestinian prisoners said that following a routine morning roll call, prison guards raided their cells and tents, brutally and violently turning over their belongings. While the guards found 81 cellular phones and 40 knives and other sharp objects during the search, the prisoners claimed the guards ripped up several Korans.

First, Newsweek pulled a Dan Rather on us, running a fabricated story just because they wanted it to be true. They told the world that an American guard at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center had ripped pages from a prisoner's Koran and flushed it down a toilet. As a result, innocent people died when practitioners of Islam rioted in protest in Afghanistan. Oops, said Newsweek, it seems we can't back up our story. Oh well, it's probably true; we just can't prove it. (Isn't it convenient for Newsweek that the media now have "Deep Throat" to talk about so...

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon late Friday confirmed five incidents of Koran desecration at the prison for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapping up a high-priority investigation. The findings concluded that one soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book, other guards hit it with water balloons, and a soldier's urine splashed on a prisoner and his Koran...more from LA TIMES IN LINK ---- Koran desecration at all time highs. Dilby.com reports that people are submitting video. This site "The Dilby News Monitor" also has a huge picture of a burned Koran for their frontpage today. I guess this has infuriated people...

GITMO DETAINEES DESECRATE QURAN By Michelle Malkin   ·   June 03, 2005 09:57 PM That's the headline you won't be reading over this AP story filed tonight on investigative findings released by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba. Buried down in the AP story about Quran abuses at Gitmo, we learn: [Hood] said his investigation found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Qurans. "These included using a Quran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Quran, attempting to flush a Quran down the toilet and urinating on the Quran," Hood's report said. It...

WASHINGTON, June 4, 2005 – An inquiry into allegations of mishandling of the Koran by U.S. personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reveals "a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling" dating back almost two and a half years, the general who led the effort said June 3. Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, released results of his inquiry, which was launched following allegations in the media that U.S. personnel at the detention facility had flushed a Koran down the toilet. The inquiry found no credible evidence that the flushing incident occurred, U.S. Southern Command officials said...

Guantanamo Bay personnel cited in 4 incidents confirmed by military A detainee sits in his cell at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a 2004 file photo. (CNN) -- A U.S. military investigation has found four incidents in which guards at the Guantanamo Bay prison mishandled the Quran, but said that it was detainees who threw the Muslim holy book in the toilet. The report said it confirmed four times when U.S. personnel at the base mishandled the Quran: guards kicked a detainee's Quran; a guard's urine "splashed" a detainee and his holy book after coming through an...

CRAWFORD, Texas - A Pentagon report detailing incidents in which U.S. guards at Guantanamo Bay prison desecrated the Quran is creating another public relations challenge for President Bush. Two weeks ago, the White House was thrown on the defensive by a now-retracted Newsweek report alleging that U.S. interrogators at the detention center for alleged terrorists in Cuba had flushed a Quran down a toilet. The story stirred worldwide controversy and the Bush administration blamed it for deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan. Saying America's image abroad had suffered irreparable damage, the White House responded with a verbal offensive against the media. On...

ASHINGTON - The Pentagon on Friday confirmed for the first time that a U.S. soldier deliberately kicked a Guantanamo Bay prisoner's Muslim holy book in violation of the military's rules for handling the Quran. In other confirmed incidents, prison guards threw water balloons in a cell block, causing an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; a guard's urine splashed on a detainee and his Quran; an interrogator stepped on a Quran during an interrogation; and a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran. The findings are among the results of an investigation last...

In the course of the inquiry, 15 incidents were identified where detainees mishandled Korans. These included using a Koran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Koran, attempting to flush a Koran down the toilet, and urinating on the Koran.

(2005-06-04) -- Friday's release of a Pentagon study on mishandling of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay detention center has sparked Saudi Arabia's leader to call for similar probes of Bible handling in detention facilities throughout the Muslim world. Since May, the Pentagon has examined thousands of pages of documentation, finding five confirmed cases of Koran mishandling by U.S. personnel, and 15 cases in which Muslim prisoners desecrated their own complimentary copies of the book that they had received from the U.S. government. The Pentagon has distributed some 1,600 taxpayer-funded copies of the Muslim Holy Book to suspected terrorists detained at...

An interrogator accidentally stepped on a prisoner's Koran, copies of Islam's holy text got wet when guards tossed water balloons into a cellblock and one was "splashed" by urine, according to the final results of a Pentagon probe. But the investigation sparked by accusations in the press about desecration of the Koran here found "no credible evidence" that prison guards or interrogators "ever flushed a Koran down a toilet," the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the prison for terrorism suspects, said yesterday. The findings show that al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at the detention center themselves mishandled Korans on 15...

A U.S. military investigation into the mishandling of the Muslim holy book at the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists has determined that detainees -- not U.S. soldiers -- attempted to flush the Quran down the toilet there. -SNIP-In one incident, on February 23, 2004, the report said a guard saw a "detainee place two Qurans in his toilet and state he no longer cared about the Quran or his religion. Five minutes later, after the detainee retrieved the Qurans, he ripped several pages out of one Quran and threw the pages on the floor. Then, he placed both Qurans...

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. military officials say no guard at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects flushed a detainee's Quran down the toilet, but they disclosed that a Muslim holy book was splashed with urine. In other newly disclosed incidents, a detainee's Quran was deliberately kicked and another's was stepped on. On March 25, a detainee complained to guards that "urine came through an air vent" and splashed on him and his Quran. A guard admitted he was at fault, but a report released Friday evening offering new details about Quran mishandling incidents did not make clear whether the...

AP-Guantanamo-Quran URGENT PENTAGON (AP) - The Pentagon has confirmed for the first time that a US soldier deliberately kicked a Guantanamo Bay prisoner's Quran in violation of the military's rules for handling the Muslim holy book. AP-NY-06-03-05 1918EDT

WASHINGTON, June 3 - A military inquiry has found that guards or interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba kicked, stepped on and splashed urine on the Koran, in some cases intentionally but in others by accident, the Pentagon said on Friday. The splashing of urine was among the cases described as inadvertent. It was said to have occurred when a guard urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into a detainee's cell. The detainee was given a fresh uniform and a new Koran, and the guard was reprimanded and assigned...

By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon on Friday confirmed for the first time that a U.S. soldier deliberately kicked a Guantanamo Bay prisoner's Muslim holy book in violation of the military's rules for handling the Quran. In other confirmed incidents, prison guards threw water balloons in a cell block, causing an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; a guard's urine splashed on a detainee and his Quran; an interrogator stepped on a Quran during an interrogation; and a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran. The findings are...

American jailers at the Guantanamo prison base for foreign terrorism suspects splashed a Koran with urine, kicked and stepped on the Islamic holy book and soaked it in water, the US Military said on Friday. US Southern Command, responsible for the prision at the US Naval base at Guananamo bay, Cuba, described for the first time five cases of 'mishandling' of the Koran by US personnel confirmed by a newly completed military inquiry, said officials in a statement.

The Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades in Europe posted a communiqué on Islamic message forums on May 29, 2005, calling upon all Jihadist cells in Iraq, the U.S. and Europe to start a 'bloody war' against the enemies of Islam in response to the reports of Koran desecration at Guantanamo Bay. (http://www.al-ansar.tk) [Posted on ticker at MEMRI]

The images of Muslims rampaging over rumors and unproven allegations of “Koran abuse” are troubling--but not because of the behavior of the mobs. What else should we expect from fanatics whose religion justifies in them a toxic combination of arrogant superiority, spiritual entitlement, and corrosive resentment over history's repudiation of their inflated estimation of their world-historical role? Their minds addled by this brew, they find it perfectly reasonable to believe gratifying fantasies in which 9/11 was the handiwork of Zionist agents, the United States has spent lives and treasure liberating Iraqi Muslims in a scheme to acquire oil, and Jews...

Dubai, 30 May (AKI) - The Abu Hafs al-Misri Brigades have called their 'sleeping' European cells to action with a message published on some of the most important Islamist internet forums saying: "We ask all waiting mujahideen, wherever they are, to carry out the planned attack." The message follows months of silence from the group which claimed responsibility for the Madrid train bombings on March 11 last year and threatened Italy last summer. This time, part of the message is addressed directly to the European cells. The first part of the 'Message to the mujahideen in Europe', however, is directed...

The headline on the top of the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Thursday was: "FBI told of Quran abuses." The wording of the headline and the prominence of the display give the casual reader the impression the story - written by Neil Lewis of the New York Times - was new, and that the story was true. Neither is so. Lewis' story was based on reports of interrogations by FBI agents of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and 2003. He noted in his third paragraph that "they are accounts of unsubstantiated allegations made by the prisoners under interrogation."

India, 1857. Islamic and Hindu soldiers in the British army, called sepoys, mutiny over news that they will be issued cartridges greased with pork and beef fat, which they would have to bite open with their teeth before loading their new Lee-Enfield rifles. The British have no clue how sacrilegious eating pork is to a Muslim or beef to a Hindu. They are oblivious to the pent-up resentment against imperial rule, and flabbergasted when the Sepoy Rebellion spreads across India. According to some accounts, the greased-cartridge purchase was only a rumor. In other versions, the sepoys refused to believe a...

The images of Muslims rampaging over rumors and unproven allegations of “Koran abuse” are troubling — but not because of the behavior of the mobs. What else should we expect from fanatics whose religion justifies a toxic combination of arrogant superiority, spiritual entitlement, and corrosive resentment over history's repudiation of their inflated estimation of their world-historical role? Their minds addled by this brew, they find it perfectly reasonable to believe gratifying fantasies in which 9/11 was the handiwork of Zionist agents, the United States has spent lives and treasure liberating Iraqi Muslims in a scheme to acquire oil, and Jews...

In his recent column ["Media doing a poor job, but maybe not for the reasons you think," May 22], Rick Mercier said "there's nothing wrong with slamming sloppy journalism." Mercier then uses one of the weakest weasel words in journalism — "may" — as the linchpin of his argument: "And then let's acknowledge that the Newsweek article was not the first and only report of U.S. interrogators desecrating the Quran — there have been several others by U.S. and British news outlets and by groups such as the International Committee of the Red Cross. So American interrogators may indeed be...

Some questions, answers and general observations about the recent flap involving Newsweek magazine and the infamous, flushing-the-Koran allegation: 1) Was Newsweek wrong to print the story? Yes. Apart from the ideological ramifications of the incident (more on those later), publishing the story was simply bad journalism. The magazine claimed it had sources for the allegation. Sources (plural) turned out to be “source”(singular), which turned out to be someone who thought he heard proof of the allegation. That’s hardly a strong base upon which to build a case for running such a potentially explosive accusation. Writers generally learn about this in...