Koran abuse report 'may be wrong'

US magazine Newsweek says its report on the desecration of a Muslim holy book by US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay may have been mistaken.
The latest edition says its source is not sure where he saw the assertion that a Koran was flushed down a toilet in an attempt to pressurise detainees.

The original claims triggered outrage throughout the Muslim world.

Newsweek extended sympathy to victims of riots in Afghanistan, where at least 15 have died following the report.

Clerics there threatened holy war unless the US handed over the culprits
More than 100 people have been injured in violent anti-US protests from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Indonesia and Gaza.

The US authorities had promised prompt action if the allegations proved to be true.

'Sympathies to victims'

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong," Newsweek's editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue, due to appear on news stands on Monday.

Mr Whitaker said Newsweek wanted to "extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst".

In its new account, the magazine said that one of its reporters spoke to "his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Koran, including a toilet incident".

"But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced" in a forthcoming report by the US military, the magazine added.

Newsweek said that when it told Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita about what the source said, the spokesman became angry.

"People are dead because of what this son-of-a-bitch said. How could he be credible now?" Mr DiRita was quoted as saying.