Updated on
Summary NATO has pulled all its staff out of Afghan ministries after an attack at the Interior Ministry.
NATO on Saturday pulled all its staff out of Afghan government ministries after two of its advisors were shot dead within the interior ministry, as anti-US protests raged for a fifth day.Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying it was in revenge for the burning of Korans at a US-run military base -- an incident that forced US President Barrack Obama to apologise to the Afghan people.In a day of violence across the country, a UN compound came under attack by thousands of demonstrators in northeastern Kunduz province, but they were driven back when police fired into the crowd, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.Five people were reported killed in the attack, taking the five day death toll from protests over the burning of Korans at the US-run Bagram airbase to around 30.President Hamid Karzai issued a statement urging demonstrators and Afghan security forces to exercise restraint, saying the government was pressing the US on the need to bring to justice the perpetrators of the crime.NATO said that in the Kabul shooting an individual turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force officers in the interior ministry, killing two, without giving further details.A government source told AFP the two men were American advisors and that they were shot within the interior ministry, which has responsibilities for counter-terrorism operations, by a member of the Afghan police.For obvious force protection reasons, I have ... taken immediate measures to recall all other ISAF personnel working in ministries in and around Kabul, said General John Allen, commander of NATOs International Security Assistance Force.The US, which leads a 130,000-strong military force fighting an insurgency in Afghanistan, has advisors throughout the Afghan government.Britain said its embassy was also temporarily withdrawing all civilian mentors and advisors from Afghan government institutions in Kabul.The latest deaths come hard on the heels of the killing of two American troops on Thursday when an Afghan soldier turned his weapon on them at their base in eastern Nangarhar province as demonstrators approached.The Koran burning has inflamed anti-Western sentiment already smouldering in Afghanistan over abuses by US-led foreign troops, such as the release last month of a video showing US Marines urinating on the corpses of dead Afghans.
