KABUL (Reuters) – Police fired into the air to disperse thousands of anti-American protesters in Afghanistan's capital Wednesday, witnesses and police said, with one person killed and at least five wounded. 
 
 Demonstrators chanted "Death to America," "Death to Christians," and "Death to Karzai," the latter referring to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in the biggest protests since unrest erupted last week over plans by a U.S. pastor to burn the Koran. 
 
 "There are more than 10,000 of the demonstrators and some of them are waving the Taliban flag," police officer Mohammad Usman. 
 
 The protests come three days before a parliamentary election which the Taliban have vowed to disrupt. The election is a key test of stability in Afghanistan before U.S. President Barack Obama conducts a war strategy review in December. 
 
 They follow three days of protests at the weekend over plans by an obscure U.S. pastor, which he later abandoned, to burn copies of the Koran to mark the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, hijacked airliner attacks on the United States. 
 
 Three people were killed in those protests. Observers including the top U.N. diplomat in Afghanistan had warned the Taliban may try to exploit the Koran-burning protests. 
 
 A police source later said one person had been killed and five wounded, and that the toll could rise. The protests were the Reuters television pictures showed protesters waving large white flags, the symbol used by Taliban supporters. 
 
 A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the hardline Islamist group was aware of the protests but had no role in them. 
 
 "People may have raised the Taliban flags to show their sentiment and sympathy for the Taliban," Mujahid told Reuters from an undisclosed location. 
 
 At the Pul-e-Kandahari, or Kandahar bridge in Kabul, police were ordered to advance toward one group of hundreds of protesters who were throwing stones and shouting "Death to American slaves" at police. 
 
 Police were seen firing into the air and dragging away several protesters. At one point, volleys of gunfire could be heard. The protesters scattered, some sheltering in nearby houses in the mainly ethnic Pashtun and Tajik area of Kabul. 
 
 The protesters earlier gathered in the west of the capital, burning tires and blocking a main highway link to the south. Thick black smoke rose above the area and police kept journalists several hundred meters back. 
 
 Reuters witnesses at the scene saw two unconscious people, covered in blood, being carried away suffering what appeared to be gunshot wounds. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Paul Tait and Sanjeev Miglani) ||||| 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)
– Afghan police today fired into a crowd of rock-hurling anti-American demonstrators chanting "Death to America," "Death to Christians," and "Death to Karzai" in Kabul today. One was killed and at least five injured, two from gunshots. The US Koran-burning controversy has stirred days of outrage and protests among millions of Muslims and others worldwide, notes the AP; today's protests were the largest so far, Reuters adds. Afghan police say the Taliban are using this anger to fuel anti-government sentiment ahead of elections next week. "There are more than 10,000 of the demonstrators and some of them are waving the Taliban flag," says one officer.