Nine dead in Quran protests

At least nine people have been killed in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, officials said on Saturday, on a second day of violent protests over the burning of a Quran by a radical fundamentalist Christian in the United States.

At least nine people have been killed in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, officials said on Saturday, on a second day of violent protests over the burning of a Quran by a radical fundamentalist Christian in the United States.

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A suicide attack also hit a Nato military base in the capital Kabul, the day after protesters over-ran a UN mission in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and killed seven foreign staff, in the deadliest attack on the UN in Afghanistan.

The violence is the worst in Afghanistan for months, and comes as the country gears up for the first stage of a years-long security handover to Afghan troops, and after the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, delivered an optimistic assessment of progress in the war.