Free Republic

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Muslims in Afghanistan gave Washington three days to offer a response to a Newsweek story that claimed the Islamic holy book was desecrated at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, but the magazine apologized Sunday for the report, which prompted deadly riots across Afghanistan last week. Reaction across the Islamic world has been strong, with daily demonstrations since the May 9 story came out. At least 15 people died in Afghanistan after protests broke out Tuesday following the report that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed Qurans in washrooms to unsettle suspects, and in one case...

THE incendiary account of US interrogators flushing a copy of the Koran down a toilet at Guantanamo Bay may not, after all, be true, the magazine behind the claim said.The report in last week’s Newsweek sparked riots in Afghanistan that spread across the Muslim world, leading to the deaths of at least 14 people and injuries to more than 120. In this week’s edition the magazine backtracks. “We regret that we got any part of our story wrong and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst,” Mark Whitaker, the Editor,...

May 23 issue - Did a report in NEWSWEEK set off a wave of deadly anti-American riots in Afghanistan? That's what numerous news accounts suggested last week as angry Afghans took to the streets to protest reports, linked to us, that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Qur'an while interrogating Muslim terror suspects. We were as alarmed as anyone to hear of the violence, which left at least 15 Afghans dead and scores injured. But I think it's important for the public to know exactly what we reported, why, and how subsequent events unfolded.