Kabul:
Protesters angered by the burning of a Koran by a fringe American pastor in Florida mobbed offices of the United Nations in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing ten foreign staff members and beheading two of the victims, according to an Afghan police spokesman. Five Afghans were also killed.
The attack began when hundreds of demonstrators, some of them armed, poured out of mosques after Friday Prayer and headed to the headquarters of the United Nations in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. They disarmed the guards and overran the compound, according to Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, spokesman for Gen. Daoud Daoud, the Afghan National Police commander for northern Afghanistan.
A spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Kieran Dwyer, said the attack had occurred during a demonstration. "We can confirm there have been casualties, including U.N. personnel, but the situation on the ground remains very confusing," he said. He added that Staffan de Mistura, the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, was en route to Mazar-i-Sharif.
Tolo TV news in Kabul reported that the head of the United Nations mission in the city was among the victims, but that could not be confirmed.
Mirwais Zabi, director of the public health hospital in Mazar-i-Sharif, said 24 wounded Afghan civilians and five dead Afghan civilians were brought to the hospital, with more wounded expected. Other reports said that the Afghan dead included some of the guards.
Mr. Ahmadzai, the police spokesman, said the crowd was angry about the burning of the Koran after a mock trial overseen by Pastor Terry Jones on Mar. 20. Mr. Jones had caused an international uproar by threatening to burn the Koran last Sept. 11, and demonstrations at the time led to deaths throughout Afghanistan, but on a small scale. Mr. Jones subsequently had publicly promised not to burn a Koran, but then went ahead last month, after holding a mock trial of the Koran at his fringe church in Gainesville, Fla.
After disarming the United Nations compound's guards, the crowd surged inside. Eight of the foreign staffers, whose nationalities were not known immediately, were killed by gunfire, and two others were captured and then beheaded, Mr. Ahmadzai said. He added that 15 people had so far been arrested for their part in the attack, and that the Afghan authorities had brought the situation under control.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, six American soldiers have been killed in a single operation in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday and Thursday, a spokesman for the international coalition said Friday.
"I can confirm that six coalition soldiers have been identified as US soldiers, and were all killed as part of the same operation, but in three separate incidents," said Maj. Tim James.
The operation, a helicopter-borne assault into a remote part of Kunar Province close to the Pakistani border, was ongoing. The area is frequently used to infiltrate fighters from Pakistan. The purpose of the operation, Major James said, was to "disrupt insurgent operations."
The governor of Kunar Province, Said Fazlullah Wahidi, said the operation began Wednesday as a joint Afghan and American air and ground operation in the districts of Sarkani and Marawara, close to the border of Pakistan. He said that 14 insurgents were killed and 10 wounded, but had no information about Afghan government casualties.