On the sixth day of violent protests over the unintentional burning of Korans by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, those close to President Obama defended the continued relationship with Kabul while Republicans panned the president's decision to apologize for the incident.
First, an update on the violence from Agence France-Presse:
Two US advisors who were shot dead in Afghanistan's interior ministry by an Afghan colleague had been mocking anti-US protests over the burning of the Koran, a government source said Sunday.
The description of events -- which led to NATO pulling all its advisors out of Afghan government ministries -- came amid renewed violence in a sixth day of anti-American demonstrations.
A protester was killed and seven US soldiers were wounded in a grenade attack on their base as France announced its Kabul embassy was temporarily withdrawing all its civilian mentors and advisors from Afghan institutions for "safety reasons".
Germany also said it had withdrawn its national and international staff from Afghan ministries as a "precautionary measure".
Describing the sequence of events that led to the interior ministry shootings, the source said the US advisors were "scolding the protesters and calling them bad names", as they watched videos of protests in Kabul.
"They called the Koran a bad book in the presence of (an Afghan colleague). After all this the guy had verbal arguments with the advisors and was threatened by them. He gets angry and shoots them. Eight rounds were fired at them," the source added, requesting anonymity.
"He then sneaks out and disappears. No one knew about the incident for more than an hour because the room is soundproofed," he said, adding that CCTV cameras had been viewed in the investigation of the shooting.
Asked about this description of events in the ministry on Saturday, a spokesman for NATO's US-led International Security Assistance Force said: "The investigation is ongoing."
Those close to the president said that despite the violence, the U.S. won't walk away from Kabul. From the Associated Press:
The top U.S. diplomat in Kabul and a campaign adviser to President Barack Obama said Sunday the U.S. isn't rethinking its commitment to Afghanistan after violent protests left more than two dozen people dead, including two American shot inside a government ministry.
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Robert Gibbs, Obama's former press secretary, said they believe Afghan President Hamid Karzai's fragile government could collapse and the Taliban would regain power if the U.S. were to walk away.
"This is not the time to decide that we're done here," said Crocker. "We have got to redouble our efforts. We've got to create a situation in which al-Qaida is not coming back."
And the Boston Globe has the Republican reaction on the chaos, specifically on the campaign trail:
After two US military advisers were killed inside Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, and others have been wounded in demonstrations over the apparently unintentional burning of Korans by Americans, the top contenders in the Republican presidential race continue to say President Obama was wrong to apologize for the burning.
Both former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said Sunday that Obama should not have apologized - particularly given the Afghan response. Obama apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday.
"I think for a lot of people, this sticks in their throat," Romney said on "Fox News Sunday.'' "The idea that we're there, having lost thousands of individuals to casualty and death -- we've made an enormous contribution there to help the people there achieve freedom. For us to be apologizing at a time like this is something that is very difficult for the American people to countenance."
Santorum, speaking on "ABC's This Week,'' said Obama should not have apologized because the burning was not done deliberately. "This was something that happened in a mistake," he said. "Killing Americans in uniform was not a mistake." Apologizing, Santorum said, means suggesting that there is some blame involved and that the US is taking responsibility.
What do you think?
MORE: Inside President Obama's tenure
(Photo by Allan Tannenbaum-Pool/Getty Images)
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