Protesters threw rocks at police, government buildings and a U.N. office in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, kicking off a fifth day of riots sparked by the burning of the Qurans at a U.S. base, officials said. At least 28 people have been killed and hundreds wounded since Tuesday, the Associated Press reported. Elsewhere in Afghanistan, six Afghan soldiers were killed and 16 others were wounded when they tried to defuse a bomb, the Afghan Defense Ministry said. The incident occurred in Mukar district of Badghis province in the west. Hundreds of demonstrators staged peaceful protests in Nangarhar and Paktia provinces, but ones in Laghman, Kunduz and Logar provinces turned violent. Laghman provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said about 1,000 protesters threw stones at Afghan security forces, smashed windows of government buildings and tried to attack the nearby governor's house in the provincial capital Mehterlam. He said eight people were injured - three policemen, two officers and three civilians.
