Mass anti-Islam rally to be held in front of Michigan mosque

PanARMENIAN.Net - Two policemen have been killed and 20 more people wounded in Afghanistan during the second day of protests against the burning of a Koran in the U.S.

The deaths were reported in the city of Kandahar, where reports said protesters had set fire to a gas canister, causing an explosion. News of the violent demonstration comes after pastor Terry Jones vowed to lead an anti-Islam protest outside America's biggest mosque. Internet footage of the militant preacher presiding over a March 20 mock trial of the Koran included a torching of the holy book.

The incident has sparked three days of protests in Afghanistan and stoked anti-Western sentiment across the Muslim world. Violent demonstrations in Kandahar, in the country's south, have now resulted in the deaths of at least 20 people - including seven UN workers.

Reports from the eastern city of Jalalabad said similar protests were largely peaceful.

Hundreds of people blocked a main highway for about three hours, shouting for U.S. troops to leave and burning an effigy of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Mr Obama denounced the Koran burning but did not mention Mr Jones by name. "The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry," Mr Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "However, to attack and kill innocent people in response is outrageous, and an affront to human decency and dignity."

Mr Jones, a former hotel manager turned pastor who claims the Koran incites violence, said he would go ahead with his own protest on April 22 in front of a Michigan mosque. "Our aim is to make an awareness of the radical element of Islam," he said at the church he leads in the college town of Gainesville in Florida. "Obviously it is terrible any time people are murdered or killed - I think that on the other hand, it shows the radical element of Islam."

Government officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan have called for U.S. authorities to arrest Mr Jones, SkyNews reported.