By IANS,
Washington : US military investigators have concluded that five soldiers were involved in the burning of the holy Quran in Afghanistan last week, Xinhua reported.
The soldiers removed the copies of the Quran from a prison located at Bagram air base after they were found to contain extremist messages.
The books were then placed in an office for safekeeping, according to the inquiry ordered by General John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force.
But they were mistaken for garbage and taken to a landfill on the base.
Afghan employees identified the books as Qurans just as their pages caught fire, a major desecration, according to religious teachings.
The discovery Feb 21 led to a week of unprecedented tension between the US and the Afghan military, as well as a week of protests that left over 30 Afghans dead.
The burnings also were cited as motivation for at least some of six fatal attacks on US soldiers that have occurred in Afghanistan in the past week.
Top UN envoy to Afghanistan Jan Kubis called on the coalition forces to take disciplinary action against the accused.