Seven UN workers killed in Afghan Koran protest
Four Nepalese, one Swedish, one Norwegian and one Romanian worker were believed to have been killed, and several protesters killed or wounded after a mob overwhelmed guards at the UN compound in the normally relatively calm city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the violence following a battle of over three hours in which part of the building was burned down amid small arms fire and explosions, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.
US President Barack Obama condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms", while UN chief Ban Ki-moon said it was "an outrageous and cowardly attack against UN staff which cannot be justified under any circumstances".
A police spokesman said demonstrators seized weapons from guards at the UN building before turning them on the staff. The Nepalese Gurkha guards killed several protesters before they were fatally wounded, a senior UN official said.
Balkh provincial governor Atta Mohammad Noor said five others, thought to be protesters, were killed along with the seven UN workers, while at least 20 people were wounded in the fighting. Some 20 people were arrested, he said.
Hundreds of people had taken to the streets of Mazar-i-Sharif to protest the burning of a Koran in the United States in March, and local police spokesman Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai said Taliban militants had infiltrated the demonstrators.
He told AFP that "two of the killed UN staff were beheaded". But accounts of the killings were conflicting, with police official General Abdul Rauf Taj saying that "according to the initial reports... none have been beheaded. They were shot in the head."
UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the seven dead included four Nepalese.
Sweden's foreign minister said 33-year-old national Joakim Dungel was killed, while Norway's army said one of its officers, 53-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Siri Skare, was among the dead.
Romanian official sources told news agency Agerpres that a Romanian man working for the UN was also among those killed.
In the last major attack on the UN in Afghanistan, five of its foreign staff were killed when three gunmen wearing explosives-packed vests attacked a Kabul guesthouse in October 2009.
Friday's attack was the worst suffered by the world body since a bomb blast at the UN compound in Algiers in 2007 in which 17 staff were killed.
The UN special representative in Afghanistan, Staffan De Mistura, was in Mazar-i-Sharif dealing with the crisis, a UN official said separately late Friday.
The UN Security Council called a special meeting on Afghanistan for 2100 GMT on Friday to discuss the attack.
"The dedicated staff of the UN Mission in Afghanistan does courageous work every single day to support the Afghan people under extremely difficult circumstances, including repeated attacks," said US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, ahead of the meeting.
"It is inexcusable that these brave souls would be targeted for violence."
Mazar-i-Sharif, deemed relatively safe, is among seven areas chosen by President Hamid Karzai and the international coalition to launch a transition process in which foreign forces will pass responsibility for security to Afghan forces from July 1.
Foreign forces have traditionally been less visible in the city.
Ahead of Friday's violence Afghanistan had condemned the "disrespectful and abhorrent" burning of the Koran by little-known evangelical Pastor Wayne Sapp in a Florida church, calling it an effort to incite tension between religions.
Friday's protest began after the traditional prayers, and demonstrators gained access to UN headquarters around 3:00 pm (1030 GMT), a police spokesman said.
The crowd of demonstrators called on the Afghan government to cut diplomatic ties with the United States if the cleric behind the Koran burning was not prosecuted, and to declare the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan illegal.
Protests against the burning were also held in Kabul, where demonstrators shouted slogans against the United States, Israel and Britain.
Several thousand people protested in the northwestern city of Herat, burning US flags and stamping on them, according to an eyewitness, Sardar.
Shafiqullah Behrozian, spokesman for Herat's governor, told AFP that "the demonstration was entirely peaceful... It is because the religious elders of Herat had asked people not to use violence."
Afghanistan is a deeply devout Islamic country where even rumours that the Koran has been insulted can result in violence.
In January last year seven tribesmen were killed when Afghan security forces opened fire on demonstrations sparked by the alleged desecration of a Koran by US troops in the southern province of Helmand.
The demonstrators were trying to overrun NATO bases and police facilities when they were fired on. An investigation by NATO and Afghan authorities found that no Koran had been torched.
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