‘US killed Afghan civilians to distract from Qur’an desecration’

A senior Iranian cleric says the recent massacre of innocent Afghans by a US soldier was a deliberate effort by Washington to divert attention from its earlier desecration of the Holy Qur’an in Afghanistan.

Western powers are hostile towards Islam because they fully understand its power to rule and change the world, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani said on Friday.

An American soldier went on a shooting spree in Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar on March 11, killing at least 17 innocent Afghan civilians and wounding several others.

The incident came in the wake of recent violent clashes in several provinces of the war-ravaged country over Qur’an burning by the US-led forces, which left over 30 people, including six American soldiers, dead and around 180 others injured.

Ayatollah Emami-Kashani further pointed to the protests of the Bahraini people against the ruling regime, saying that this movement is similar to those in Egypt and Tunisia and is rooted in Islam.

“Saudi Arabia says the movement (uprising) of the Bahraini people is against Islam. Which Islam do they mean? [Is it] the Islam that the US proposes [or] the Islam that is silent on Muslim killings or Quran burning?”

Bahrainis have been holding anti-government demonstrations since mid-February 2011, calling on the US-backed Al Khalifa family to leave power.

On March 14, 2011, Saudi troops entered Bahrain to assist the Manama government in its quelling peaceful popular protests in the Persian Gulf Island.

According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds have been arrested in the Saudi-backed regime crackdown.