Anti-American rioting sweeps Afghanistan
A series of bloody incidents across Afghanistan demonstrates the weakness and political crisis of the US occupation regime, and refutes the claims by the Obama administration that its escalation of the war against the Taliban and other insurgent forces has produced significant military gains. Several of the incidents were triggered by the provocative actions of a small Christian fundamentalist group in Florida, which staged a public burning of the Koran last month and posted video of the event on the Internet, including Arabic-language subtitles in an effort to inflame Muslim opinion around the world. The video has been widely circulated in Afghanistan, and US-backed President Hamid Karzai made a public denunciation of the desecration of the Islamic holy book in a speech Thursday, in which he called for the arrest of the Florida preacher, Terry Jones, who staged the Koran-burning.