KABUL (Reuters) - Twelve people were killed on Friday in the bloodiest day yet in protests that have raged across Afghanistan over the desecration of copies of the Muslim holy book at a NATO military base with riot police and soldiers on high alert braced for more violence. 
 
 The burning of the Korans at the Bagram compound earlier this week has deepened public mistrust of NATO forces struggling to stabilize Afghanistan before foreign combat troops withdraw in 2014. 
 
 Hundreds of Afghans marched toward the palace of Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, while on the other side of the capital protesters hoisted the white flag of the Taliban. 
 
 Chanting "Death to America!" and "Long live Islam!," protesters also threw rocks at police in Kabul, while Afghan army helicopters circled above. 
 
 Friday is a holy day and the official weekly holiday in Afghanistan and mosques in the capital drew large crowds, with police in pick-up trucks posted on nearby streets. 
 
 Armed protesters took refuge in shops in the eastern part of the city, where they killed one demonstrator, said police at the scene. In another Kabul rally, police said they were unsure who fired the shots that killed a second protester. 
 
 Seven more protesters were killed in the western province of Herat, two more in eastern Khost province and one in the relatively peaceful northern Baghlan province, health and local officials said. In Herat, around 500 men charged at the U.S. consulate. 
 
 U.S. President Barack Obama had sent a letter to Karzai apologizing for the unintentional burning of the Korans at NATO's main Bagram air base, north of Kabul, after Afghan laborers found charred copies while collecting rubbish. 
 
 Muslims consider the Koran to be the literal word of God and treat each copy with deep reverence. Desecration is considered one of the worst forms of blasphemy. 
 
 Afghanistan wants NATO to put those responsible on public trial. 
 
 In neighboring U.S. ally Pakistan, about 400 members of a hardline Islamist group staged protests. "If you burn the Koran, we will burn you," they shouted. 
 
 To Afghanistan's west, Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami said the U.S. had purposely burned the Korans. "These apologies are fake. The world should know that America is against Islam," he said in a speech broadcast live on state radio. 
 
 "It (the Koran burning) was not a mistake. It was an intentional move, done on purpose." 
 
 Most Westerners have been confined to their heavily fortified compounds, including at the sprawling U.S. embassy complex and other diplomatic missions, as protests that have killed a total of 23 people, including two U.S. soldiers, rolled into their fourth day. The embassy, in a message on the microblogging site Twitter, urged U.S. citizens to "please be safe out there" and expanded movement restrictions to relatively peaceful northern provinces, where large demonstrations also occurred Thursday, including the attempted storming of a Norwegian military base. 
 
 The Taliban urged Afghan security forces Thursday to "turn their guns on the foreign infidel invaders" and repeatedly urged Afghans to kill, beat and capture NATO soldiers. 
 
 Germany, which has the third-largest foreign presence in the NATO-led war, pulled out several weeks early of a small base in the northern Takhar province Friday over security concerns, a defense ministry spokesman said. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Amira Mitri in TEHRAN, Imtiaz Shah in KARACHI, Sabine Siebold in BERLIN, Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ed Lane) ||||| — As thousands of angry Afghans flung rocks at NATO’s largest military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday, American officials sought to quell a widening furor over what they said was the accidental incineration by U.S. military personnel of copies of the Islamic holy book. 
 
 The protests erupted early Tuesday after Afghans working at Bagram air base told local residents that a number of copies of the Koran had been burned. When they carried out the charred pages, waving them in the air, the crowd grew larger and more defiant. 
 
 Among those chanting “Long live Islam” and “Death to America” were some of the 5,000 Afghans who have worked inside the base for years. Gen. John R. Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was quick to express contrition for the incident, which officials worried could incite violence across the country. 
 
 U.S. officials said the books were mistakenly sent with a pile of trash for disposal before several Afghans identified them. Although the initial protests were concentrated largely around the Bagram base, some of the charred Koran remains were sent promptly to Kabul, where President Hamid Karzai and other top Afghan officials will decide how to respond to the incident. 
 
 “These people must be punished,” said Qari Ghulam Mustafa, a top religious official from Parwan province, where Bagram is located. He carried a stack of 10 blackened Korans on his lap as he and others traveled to the capital in a white hatchback. He said nearly 100 more publications were damaged. 
 
 “If the Americans ever deny that they did this, we will show them these pages,” said Mullah Abdul Rahim Shah Agha, the head of the Parwan ulema council, or Muslim clerical body. 
 
 The apologies from Allen and top Obama administration officials were among the most profuse of the decade-long war. But there was no immediate indication that they would calm the kind of unrest that has turned explosive in the past, notably in April, when deadly protests broke out over a case of Koran-burning in Florida. 
 
 “When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them,” Allen said in a statement. “We are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again. I assure you . . . I promise you . . . this was NOT intentional in any way.” 
 
 The United States faces an enormous challenge in withdrawing its troops over the next two years while attempting to protect hard-won gains and facilitate a delicate peace process between the Afghan government and Taliban insurgents. With so little margin for error, the incident Tuesday could threaten the relationship on which U.S. military and diplomatic strategies depend. 
 
 U.S. and Afghan officials expressed concern about the prospect of more violent reaction in coming days. 
 
 The U.S. Embassy in Kabul warned American citizens, “Past demonstrations in Afghanistan have escalated into violent attacks on Western targets of opportunity.” 
 
 The incident also could complicate relations between NATO forces and those Afghans who perform a variety of nonmilitary functions on bases. The hundreds of Bagram employees who were among the protesters will have to decide whether to leave their jobs or continue working while disguising their antipathy. 
 
 “The people who do this are our enemies,” said a 27-year-old who has worked at a warehouse on the base for two years. “How could I ever work for them again?” 
 
 Another Bagram employee who joined the protest said, “Whoever goes back to work will be killed. They’ll think of us as traitors.” The workers declined to give their names for fear of reprisals. 
 
 More than 3,000 people were involved in the protests Tuesday. Afghan and Western security forces blocked roads leading to the base and instructed local employees to stay home. But when they heard about the incident, the workers arrived at the base’s front gate in droves. 
 
 Rumors about the incident — and American motives — circulated through the crowd. In Kabul, 35 miles to the south, even top Afghan officials struggled to understand what had happened. 
 
 Gen. Ahmad Amin Naseeb, director of the Afghan army’s religious and cultural affairs department, said he had been told “that the international troops have burned and thrown copies of the Koran into the dustbins.” 
 
 In his second statement of the day, Allen announced that all NATO forces in Afghanistan would complete training in the proper handling of religious materials by March 3. 
 
 NATO said religious materials, including Korans “identified for disposal,” were collected at the Parwan Detention Facility, a prison next to the base, and “were inadvertently taken to an incineration facility at Bagram airfield” Monday night. 
 
 A senior U.S. military official said the Korans were removed from the prison library because they had radical or inflammatory messages scrawled in them. A Western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that the texts were charred but that none were destroyed. 
 
 Proper treatment of the Koran is a highly sensitive issue for Muslims across the world, including in Afghanistan, where international troops are fighting to defeat the militantly Islamist Taliban in a war that has entered its 11th year. Experts in Islam say copies of the Koran should be buried or released in flowing waters if they need to be disposed of, but religious leaders in Afghanistan said Tuesday that local practice is not to dispose of the texts at all. 
 
 In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney echoed Allen’s apology, saying: “We apologize to the Afghan people and disapprove of such conduct in the strongest possible terms. This deeply unfortunate incident does not reflect the great respect our military has for the Afghan people. It’s regrettable.” 
 
 Staff writer Greg Jaffe in Washington and special correspondents Sayed Salahuddin and Walid Fazly in Kabul contributed to this report. ||||| KABUL Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed for calm Wednesday after officials said six people were shot dead and dozens wounded in protests over the burning of copies of the Koran, Islam's holy book, at NATO's main base in the country. 
 
 The U.S. embassy said its staff were in "lockdown" and travel had been suspended as thousands of people expressed fury over the burning, in protests that flared for a second day in several cities. 
 
 It was a public relations disaster for U.S.-led NATO forces fighting Taliban militants ahead of the withdrawal of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014. 
 
 The U.S. government and the American commander of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan apologized after Afghan laborers found charred copies of the Koran while collecting rubbish at the sprawling Bagram Airbase, about an hour's drive north of Kabul. 
 
 The apologies failed to contain the anger. Afghans took to the streets again, chanting anti-American slogans and some raising white Taliban flags in the capital. 
 
 Karzai urged security forces to try to protect civilian lives and property. 
 
 "Protests are the right of people but I ask my countrymen to avoid violence," he said in a statement, urging people to wait for the outcome of investigations into the burnings. 
 
 Winning the hearts and minds of Afghans is critical to efforts to defeat the Taliban. Similar incidents in the past have caused deep divisions and resentment among Afghans toward the tens of thousands of foreign troops in their country. 
 
 Seven foreign UN workers were killed during protests that raged across Afghanistan for three days in April 2011 after a U.S. pastor burned a Koran in Florida. 
 
 A senior Afghan security official, citing reports from police, told Reuters that Western security contractors working at a U.S. military camp in Kabul opened fire on protesters and wounded several. 
 
 Witness Rahimullah, 17, said his brother, Ghafar, 23, was shot by one of the contractors in the right leg when he was throwing stones during the demonstration. 
 
 The Afghan Interior Ministry said it had ordered an investigation into the shooting. 
 
 "As a result of shooting at protesters by foreign guards at Camp Phoenix, one person was killed and 10 others were wounded," the ministry said in an emailed statement. 
 
 Later, wounded protesters along the busy Jalalabad road on the fringe of Kabul said Afghan police had fired on them. 
 
 CULTURAL SENSITIVITIES 
 
 Twenty-one people, including 11 policemen, were wounded in the capital, said Mohammad Zahir, head of Kabul police's crimes unit. They included the city police chief, Ayoub Salangi, who was hit in the ankle by a stone. 
 
 In Parwan province, home to Bagram, four people were shot dead by Afghan police and 10 were wounded while attacking offices, provincial officials and the interior ministry said. 
 
 A protester was shot dead by police in Logar province, east of the capital, the governor's spokesman said. Hundreds protested in front of the governor's office. Some threw stones. 
 
 Critics say Western troops often fail to grasp the country's religious and cultural sensitivities. Muslims consider the Koran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence. 
 
 Demonstrations by as many as 2,000 people broke out as word of the Bagram find spread. 
 
 Police said most injuries were caused by flying stones and sticks hurled by protesters. Demonstrators had charged police lines and nearby military bases at a protest on the edge of Kabul, burning tires and smashing vehicles and building windows. 
 
 Protesters shouted "Death to America!" and "Death to Karzai" as black smoke rose over a large demonstration on the outskirts of the snowy Afghan capital. 
 
 "When the Americans insult us to this degree, we will join the insurgents," said Ajmal, an 18-year-old protester in Kabul. 
 
 Demonstrators set fire to part of a housing compound used by foreign contract workers. A Reuters witness said the fire damaged part of a guesthouse at the Green Village complex, where 1,500 mostly foreign contractors live and work. 
 
 Outrage also spilled over in the Afghan parliament, where several members shouted "Death to America" inside the legislative chamber. 
 
 The protests spread to several cities. 
 
 In Jalalabad, to the east, some protesters burned U.S. flags and also shouted "Death to America." Others set ablaze fuel tankers near the city's airport. 
 
 Demonstrators praised the leader of the Afghan Taliban, the secretive Mullah Mohammad Omar, screaming "Long live Mullah Omar!," Reuters witnesses said. Five people were wounded, the governor's spokesman said. 
 
 In neighboring Pakistan's largest city Karachi, around 100 Islamic seminary students protested against the Koran burnings. 
 
 "Pakistan's government should summon the American ambassador and demand an apology. And if he doesn't apologize, he should be kicked out of the country," said Abdul Basit, a protest leader. 
 
 Others took a harder line. 
 
 "No forgiveness for the desecrators of the Koran," a section of the crowd shouted. "Only death." 
 
 (Additional reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman in KABUL and Imtiaz Shah in KARACHI; Writing by Rob Taylor; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ron Popeski)
– Protesters are rallying once again to decry the burning of Korans at Bagram, with more shouts of "death to America"—and deaths—throughout the country. The New York Times reports that gunfire was audible as demonstrators assembled at a Kabul mosque following Friday prayers. Another 4,000 people carrying sticks and rocks moved toward the center of the city; some waved Taliban flags and had a jihadist slogan written on their clothes: "I sacrifice myself." Demonstrations occurred in at least six more provinces throughout Afghanistan, and Reuters reports that nine more were killed today: seven in the western province of Herat, and two in Khost in the east. Meanwhile, Germany says it has withdrawn troops from an outpost in northern Afghanistan amid the protests. The German military had planned to shutter its base in the Taloqan area in late March, but the 50 remaining soldiers have been transferred out of the base in light of the demonstrations, reports the AP. And at home, Obama is facing GOP criticism for his apology.