Muslims sceptical over Newsweek back-track on Koran

[allemand]

16 May 2005 10:12:49 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL, May 16 (Reuters) - Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan were sceptical on Monday about an apparent retraction by Newsweek magazine of a report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran and said U.S. pressure was behind the climb-down. (...)

"We will not be deceived by this," Islamic cleric Mullah Sadullah Abu Aman told Reuters in the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan, referring to the magazine's retraction.

"This is a decision by America to save itself. It comes because of American pressure. Even an ordinary illiterate peasant understands this and won't accept it."

Aman was the leader of a group of clerics who on Sunday vowed to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it handed over the military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Koran.

More:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL165639.htm

Juan Cole puts things into perspective, commenting about "the real reason for which some in the Pentagon are so angry about the Newsweek story. It may well so focus international outrage on Guantanamo that Rumsfeld will lose his little psych lab."
http://www.juancole.com/2005/05/guantanamo-controversies-bible-and.html