Pressure mounts in US against Koran burning

The Koran-torching event on Saturday planned by Pastor Terry Jones, who heads a tiny, little-known church in Florida, is fueling growing fears about heightened Christian-Muslim tensions in the United States' multi-faith society.

Feelings have already been running high over a proposal to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque close to the site in New York of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Opponents of the building plan say it is insensitive to families of the victims of the attacks by militant Islamist group al Qaeda.

Jones, whose Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Center church campaigns against "radical Islam," said he was praying about the proposed burn of the sacred Islamic text, but showed no immediate signs of backing down from his plan.

It has already triggered angry protests in Afghanistan, where US troops are fighting Taliban militants.

After US military commanders in Kabul warned the spectacle could endanger American lives, the White House and State Department weighed in with stern warnings making clear President Barack Obama's administration deplored the plan.

In Washington, leading Christian and Jewish leaders deplored the affront to religious freedom and voiced strong opposition to acts that could incite religious intolerance.

They condemned the Florida church's plans.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Tuesday condemned the proposed Koran-burning, calling it disrespectful and saying it could put Western troops in Afghanistan at risk.

On Monday in the Afghan capital Kabul, several hundred people, mostly students, demonstrated against the planned Koran-burning, chanting "Death to America."

See www.chinadaily.com.cn for full version.