Sunday saw a day of violent protests in Afghanistan against the recent burning of a Koran at the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida.
Two police officers were killed, while around 30 people were injured in the demonstrations that included shouting anti-US slogans and the burning of an effigy of US President Barack Obama.
This violence followed on from the ugly massacre of seven UN workers in an attack on a compound in Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday, and brings the total of those killed in the Koran-burning aftermath to around 24.
The Koran was publicly burnt by Pastor Wayne Sapp under the watchful eye of the notorious Pastor Terry Jones, who gained international infamy late last year after threats to burn a copy of the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11.
Jones shows no remorse for the violence this Koran-burning has caused, and refuses to cancel a planned protest outside a mosque in Michigan on April 22.
“Our aim is to make an awareness of the radical element of Islam. Obviously it is terrible any time people are murdered or killed. I think that on the other hand, it shows the radical element of Islam,” Jones insisted.
US President Barack Obama has already condemned the destructive acts of Jones and his church.
“The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House.
“However, to attack and kill innocent people in response is outrageous, and an affront to human decency dignity.”
The World Evangelical Alliance has also responded by both condemning the church’s actions and the violent responses.
“No matter how much we disagree and find abhorrent the actions of [Terry] Jones, responding in violence can never be justified,” said Dr Geoff Tunnicliffe, chief executive officer and secretary general of the World Evangelical Alliance.
The WEA urged Muslim leaders to call for an end to the violence and “explain … that the actions of this tiny extremist group who have burnt the Quran are absolutely condemned by Christians globally”.