An Iranian general says the White House should be burned in response to American soldiers’ burning Korans in Afghanistan.
"Nothing but burning the White House can relieve the wound [inflicted on] us, the Muslims, by the Burning of Quran in the United States," said Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, volunteer Commander of Iran's Basij force.
"The United States has committed such an ugly action and burnt [the] Koran because of the heavy slap it has been given by Islam," he told the country’s official Fars News Agency Saturday.
He added that American “helplessness in the confrontation against Islam is the real cause underlying the burning of the Muslims' Holy Book by American soldiers." The general called for hanging American commanders “responsible for this cowardly action."
The United States has apologized for the incident, saying the burning was a mistake after soldiers at a detention facility library took Muslim texts off the shelves after discovering they included messages of incitement. The texts were thrown in a garbage bin and burned in what the U.S. government said was a "mistake."
"Their apology can be accepted only by hanging their commanders; hanging their commanders means an apology," Nazdi stated.
More than two dozen people, including two American soldiers, have been killed in five days of protests in Afghanistan.
Nazir Ahmad Hanafi, head of the Afghan parliament's fact-finding committee, told Fars, "Those behind the tragic event should go on trial in Afghanistan and Afghan courts should decide on their case.”