Koran Tested After Claims Against US Troops in Afghanistan

October 15, 2007

Author: Staff Writer

Source: AFP

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hIIlLYZuw9R77ob_kfQ6WGqdcScA

Investigators have sent burnt pages of a Koran to Kabul for tests to verify when they were set ablaze after allegations they were torched by US soldiers, Afghan police said.

The US military has rejected that its soldiers burnt the Muslim holy book during a raid in the eastern province of Kunar early Saturday but said it would investigate what happened.

The issue is highly sensitive in devout Afghanistan and has prompted angry protests.

"We have sent burnt pages of the Koran and ash samples to the capital to the interior ministry criminal investigation branch to find out if the pages were set on fire that night or earlier," Kunar police chief Abdul Jalal Jalal told AFP.