Newsweekmagazine has retracted its report that a military investigation had found evidence of desecration of the Koran by US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.
Protests broke out across much of the Muslim world last week after Newsweekreported that US investigators found evidence that interrogators had flushed a copy of Muslim's holy book down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. The violence left about 15 dead and scores injured in Afghanistan.
Bush administration officials had yesterday brushed off an apology that Newsweek's editor Mark Whitaker had made in an editor's note and criticised the magazine's handling of the story.
"It's appalling that this story got out there," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she travelled home from Iraq.
"People lost their lives. People are dead," Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Capitol Hill. "People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do."
Following the criticism, Mr Whitaker released a statement last night that said: "Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay."
Newsweekhad reported in its issue dated May 9th that US military investigators had found evidence that interrogators placed copies of Islam's holy book in washrooms and had flushed one down the toilet to get inmates to talk.
Mr Whitaker had written in a subsequent note to readers that "We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst."
He said in his note that although other news organisations had aired charges of Koran abuse based on the testimony of detainees, the magazine decided to publish a short item after hearing from an unnamed US official that a government inquiry had found evidence corroborating the charges.
In Afghanistan, Islamic scholars and tribal elders had called for the punishment of anyone found to have abused the Koran. Lebanon's most senior Shia Muslim cleric said the reported desecration of the Koran was part of an American campaign aimed at disrespecting and smearing Islam.
On Saturday, Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf had demanded an investigation into the reported desecration of the Koran, and the story sparked protests in Yemen and the Gaza Strip.