Church Weighs Koran Burning After Petraeus Warning, Pastor Says
U.S. Army General David Petraeus
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Petraeus warned the church planning to burn Korans that the event would endanger U.S. troops.
Petraeus warned the church planning to burn Korans that the event would endanger U.S. troops. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
The pastor of a Gainesville, Florida, church planning to burn Korans on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks said he’s now “weighing” what to do after Army General David Petraeus’s warning that the event would endanger U.S. troops.
Terry Jones, senior pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, told CNN that as of now, the church still intends to burn copies of the Koran as a protest against Islamic extremists.
“We have firmly made up our mind, but at the same time we are definitely praying about it,” he said. “We are definitely weighing the situation.” An e-mail and phone call to the church weren’t immediately returned.
In a video posted on the church’s website, Jones said the Koran burning was a response to anti-American sentiment expressed by some Muslims abroad.
“The churches must stand up,” he said in the video. “We cannot expect help from anyplace else. The politicians are useless.”
Petraeus, commander of the international coalition force in Afghanistan, said in a statement today that burning Muslims’ holy book could be used by the Taliban to stoke anger among Muslims against U.S. troops in the country.
Islamic extremists would use images of the burning Korans just as they utilized photos of abused inmates in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison to build support for their cause around the world, Petraeus said.
Safety ‘In Jeopardy’
“Were the actual burning to take place, the safety of our soldiers and civilians would be put in jeopardy, and accomplishment of the mission would be made more difficult,” he said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs echoed the general’s warning. “We know that that type of activity is being transmitted back to places like Afghanistan,” he told reporters in Washington today. It would put U.S. troops “in harm’s way.”
Later today, Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to meet with an interfaith group of religious leaders to discuss what the Justice Department can do to respond to recent incidents of violence and intimidation against Muslims in the U.S.
Afghans Condemn Plan
Afghans condemned the church’s plan.
“If it happens, it will be a heart-breaking event, and will have a bad effect on the current situation of Afghanistan,” General Zaher Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said in an interview.
The Koran burning would further destabilize Helmand province, said Abdul Ahad Helmandwal, a tribal elder in the southern Afghan district.
“If it happens, Helmand people will attack foreign forces in Helmand province,” he said in an interview.
Helmand and neighboring Kandahar Province are the heartland of the Taliban movement and the focus of U.S. and Afghan military operations. Relations already are tense in Helmand after Afghan President Hamid Karzai said North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led troops launched a rocket attack in the province July 23 that killed 52 civilians.
The fury of those offended by the church’s action won’t be confined to Afghanistan’s borders, said Enayatullah Baleegh, a lecturer in Sharia Law at Kabul University.
‘It Means War’
“If they burn our holy and noble Koran, it means war starts between Muslims and non-Muslims,” he said in an interview.
In 2005, media reports that U.S. interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet sparked deadly rioting in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries.
Newsweek later apologized for publishing the original report, which was based on a confidential source who had begun to question the story’s veracity.
Sept. 11 is the ninth anniversary of al-Qaeda’s attacks in New York City and the Pentagon that killed almost 3,000 people.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net; Eltaf Najafizada in Kabul at enajafizada1@bloomberg.net
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