Police open fire as Pashtun protesters chanting 'Death to America' storm parliament in Kabul
Police opened fire as hundreds of protesters tried to storm Afghanistan’s parliament today.
Religious students chanting “Death to America" burnt an effigy of President Obama less than a week after he warned that Kabul might no longer be a credible partner in the fight against the Taleban.
Organisers insisted it was a spontaneous demonstration to protest against allegations that American
More.. troops had burnt a copy of the Koran in Wardak province – claims that were denied by Nato and the Afghan authorities.
Diplomats and political analysts suggested that the demonstration was a show of strength designed to make a political point.
“This was not a spontaneous demonstration,” a senior Afghan official said. “Someone wants to show they have the power to bring people on to the street.”
Banners in the crowd read “Down with democracy, long live Islam,” echoing suggestions from President Karzai’s campaign team that a second presidential election, scheduled for November 7, is against the best interests of Afghanistan.
President Karzai caved in last week to intense diplomatic pressure to compete in a second round. He had threatened to ignore the findings of a UN-sponsored fraud watchdog, which found that almost a million of his first round votes were faked.
The ruling cut his share of the vote from 54.6 per cent to 48.3 per cent, triggering a second round which many fear will be just as corrupt and violent as the first.
Officials said that no one was hurt yesterday when police fired AK-47 assault rifles into the air to try to disperse the demonstrators.
Some protesters hurled stones at security guards. At least five students were arrested, while hundreds more blocked the road outside parliament compound for more than an hour.
“We are prepared to die for the Koran,” screamed an organiser named Nehmatullah. “If we are killed or injured, it's jihad [holy war], we are ready.” The 19-year-old from the Sharia faculty at Kabul University, demanded the soldiers responsible for allegedly burning a Koran be brought to justice. “The soldiers should be arrested,” he said.
A spokesman for the US-led coalition insisted there was no evidence that troops had defaced a Koran. An Afghan Army mullah, quoted in an American statement, blamed insurgent propaganda.
“The enemies of Afghanistan are trying to make people go against the Government in order to start riots,” Mullah Qari said.
A spokesman for the governor in Wardak said that a Koran had been burnt, but he blamed heroin addicts paid by the insurgents.
Today’s protest has once again raised fears that Afghanistan could be engulfed by violence if supporters of either President Karzai, or his rival Dr Abdullah Abdullah, feel that their votes have been stolen in a fraudulent second round.
However, analysts in Kabul were adamant that today’s protest was an orchestrated show of strength.
“It’s impossible to bring that sort of crowd together without some sort of organising,” said Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan’s Centre for Research and Policy Studies. “People in Kabul are not usually that anti-American.”
Dr Abdullah’s supporters had warned of Iran-style election protests “with Kalashnikovs” if President Karzai claimed a victory in the first round.
Eyewitnesses said that most of the slogans were chanted in Pashtu, the ethnic mother tongue of Mr Karzai’s supporters, and that organisers marshalled the protesters into place and tried to stop them leaving
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Added: Oct 25 2009 In: middle_east
By: Mr-Creosote 
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