Burning the Koran Qoraan at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan

President Obama apologized Thursday in a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the burning of Korans at the largest American military base in Afghanistan. The incident at Bagram Air Base has fueled days of angry protests in the war-torn country, according to the White House and Karzai's office.

Two days of protests in Afghanistan have left seven people dead after word emerged that NATO forces may have been preparing to incinerate dozens of copies of Islam’s holy book, the Quran, at a garbage dump at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.

Afghan Army units have battled hundreds of Afghan protesters outside the base, and there appears to be no let up in surging anger toward NATO and US forces, who have used Bagram as their base of operations for a decade in support of the government of President Hamid Karzai.

The trouble started on Monday, after Afghan employees at Bagram discovered Qurans in a heap of books being prepared for incineration. According to the BBC, the Qurans had been confiscated from Afghan prisoners at Bagram, and were thought to have contained coded messages. But the fallout from these allegations is a massive setback for US and NATO at a time when they're preparing to reduce combat forces.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta apologized for the “inappropriate treatment” of the Quran, and promised to launch an investigation into how the decision to burn the Quran was made. "These actions do not represent the views of the United States military,” Mr. Panetta said on Tuesday. “We honor and respect the religious practices of the Afghan people, without exception."

2 U.S. troops killed in Koran backlash

Two U.S. troops have been shot to death and four more wounded by an Afghan solider who turned his gun on his allies in apparent anger over the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, an Afghan official tells CBS News.

A statement from the International Security Assistance Force - Afghanistan, the international coalition in the country, confirmed that two troops were killed in Eastern Afghanistan on Thursday by "an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform


http://news.yahoo.com/us-army-says-handling-quran-201410694.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57383420/2-u.s-troops-killed-in-koran-backlash/

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7399762n&tag=storyMediaBox;postSpecialReport