According to US military officials who have been briefed on to the probe in Holy Quran burning at the Bagram air base, at least five soldiers were involved in the incineration of a pile of Quran in Afghanistan.
Thousands of Afghans demonstrated against the desecration and burning of Holy Quran by US troops after the report was broadcasted.
The demonstrations were turned into the violence in a number of cities and provinces of Afghanisan where at least 30 people were reported to be killed and dozens of others including the Afghan security forces were injured.
The burnings also were cited as motivation for at least some of the six fatal attacks on U.S. soldiers that have occurred in Afghanistan in the last eight days.
At least 2 US military advisers were shot dead inside the Afghan Interior Ministry complex on Saturday while there were also reports of attacks on NATO military bases, NATO troops, UN compounds and governmental organizations.
NATO commander Gen. John R. Allen appointed investigators to find out the facts behind the incident. Based on the preliminary investigations it was found that the soldiers removed the Korans from a prison located at Bagram air base after they were found to contain extremist messages.
According to the inquiry, the books were then placed in an office for safekeeping but were then mistaken for garbage and taken to a landfill on the base.
The books were identified by Afghan employees in the military base while their pages caught fire.
US military officials said it is unlikely to disclose the names of the soldiers who were behind the incident however the five soldiers will be scolded.
A US military military official quoted by The Washington Post said, “For the soldiers, it will be serious — they could lose rank. But you’re not going to see the kind of public trial that some here seem to want.”
Another military official said, “What they did was careless, but there was no ill will.”
In the meantime Afghanistan’s top religious council on Friday demanded that those responsible for the burning of copies of Holy Quran at a US military base should be put on public trial.
Afghan Presidential Palace following a statement on Friday said, The Ulema Council “insists that such a devilish act is not forgiveable by apologies, and that the perpetrators of this crime should soon be publicly tried and punished.
The Ullema Council called the burning of the Muslim holy books at Bagram Air Base a “crime” and “inhumane.”
It also said apologies by senior U.S. military officials and President Barack Obama would not be accepted and called for those responsible to be “publicly tried and punished.”
