Etter at 17 mennesker er drept i Afghanistan, kunngjør Newsweek at det ikke er sikkert episoden med Koranen i toalettet har funnet sted likevel.

Newsweek magazine said today that it might have erred in reporting that American interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba might have desecrated detainees’ copies of the Koran, a report that has provoked deadly rioting in Afghanistan.

The magazine said the Defense Department had found no evidence of such desecration; in an editorial, the magazine said, «we regret that we got any part of our story wrong and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.»

Rykter om den respektløse behandling av Koranen har sirkulert, blant annet hos Al Jazeera, sier Newsweek. Men bladet har når det kommer til stykket ikke sikkert belegg for at Koranen er krenket. Newsweek sier også at opptøyene kom overraskende.’

«But Westerners, including those at Newsweek, may underestimate how severely Muslims resent the American presence,» the magazine wrote, «especially when it in any way interferes with Islamic religious faith.»

Newsweek Pulls Back on Report That Provoked Afghan Riots