U.S. military punishes officers for Quran burning, urinating video

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Light punishments

The U.S. Army on Monday sent letters of reprimand to four Army officers and two enlisted soldiers involved in the burning of Qurans at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan earlier this year, an incident that sparked massive protests across the country (NYT, Reuters, AP, LAT). And the Marine Corps handed "nonjudicial punishments" to three officers involved in a video showing four Marines urinating on the body of a dead Taliban militant, meaning the officers could get "letters of reprimand, a reduction in rank, forfeit of some pay, physical restriction to a military base, extra duties, or some combination of those." None of the punishments handed down came close to those called for by Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

A massive suicide truck bomb in Kandahar City killed four civilians and wounded the provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Raziq, who is known both for his extremely anti-Taliban views and for alleged human rights violations and corruption (Reuters, AFP, LAT).

A child accused

A medical examiner’s report on Rimsha, the Christian Pakistani girl accused of burning pages of the Quran, has confirmed that she is a minor between the ages of 13 and 14, and that her mental state does not correspond to her age, though it remained unclear whether she has Down syndrome as previously reported (AP, ET). Intelligence reports circulated to officials of Punjab Province warn that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are planning an attack on Central Jail Faisalabad to release high-level Taliban prisoners held there (ET).

Two gunmen on a motorcycle in Quetta, Balochistan opened fire on a car carrying Shi’a Muslims on Monday, killing three of them (AP). The incident occurred less than 24 hours after an attack in the town of Mach, Balochistan left five Sunni Muslims dead. And in Pakistan’s northwest, three soldiers, two members of a pro-government militia, and 31 militants were killed during a security operation in Bajaur tribal agency aimed at clearing the area of Taliban militants (AFP).

Nukes to youths

The former head of Pakistan’s nuclear program, A. Q. Khan, who helped give nuclear technology to countries such as Iran and Libya, said Monday that he has launched his own political campaign called Tehreek-e-Tahaffuz Pakistan (TTP) (Guardian, ET). Despite carrying the same acronym as the Pakistani Taliban, Khan’s movement aims to increase the political awareness of Pakistan’s youth.

— Jennifer Rowland