Karzai Calls for Calm as Police Hunt Intelligence Official

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for calm Sunday after days of violent anti-US protests, as police hunted an intelligence official suspected of killing two U.S. officers at the interior ministry.

The president made the appeal in a televised news conference after at least 29 people died in five days of demonstrations over the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base.

Karzai "condemned with the strongest words" the treatment of Islam's holy book and said the perpetrators should be punished, but told his countrymen: "Now that we have shown our feelings it is time to be calm and peaceful."

He said he respected the emotions of Afghans upset by the Koran burning, but urged them not to let "the enemies of Afghanistan misuse their feelings.”

Taliban insurgents have called on Afghans to kill foreign troops in revenge for the incident, and claimed to have been behind the shooting deaths of the two U.S. advisors in the interior ministry in Kabul on Saturday.

U.S.-led NATO forces on Saturday pulled all their staff out of Afghan government ministries after the shooting, with the Pentagon condemning it as "unacceptable" and calling on Afghan authorities to curtail raging violence.

Karzai told the news conference in response to a question that "we feel sorry for what happened,” but added that it was not yet known whether the shooter was an Afghan or a foreigner.

However, government sources said police were hunting for an Afghan intelligence official suspected of the shooting.

"A police officer who worked for the intelligence department of the ministry of interior has disappeared -- officials believe he is the suspect, and they are looking for him," an official in the ministry told Agence France Presse.

Local television quoted a source as naming the suspect as 25-year-old Abdul Saboor, who had studied in Pakistan and joined the ministry as a driver in 2007 before being promoted.

He had signed into the ministry on Saturday before disappearing. The two U.S. officers were found dead in their office with gunshot wounds.

NATO, which has a 130,000-strong U.S.-led military force fighting the Taliban insurgency, has advisors throughout the Afghan government but commanding officer General John Allen ordered them all withdrawn.

"Despite being pulled from the ministries, the military advisers remained in contact with ministry personnel," a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, Lt Col Jimmie Cummings, said Sunday.

"We will not let this incident divide the coalition," he said on ISAF's Twitter feed.

The Koran burning at Bagram airbase north of Kabul has inflamed anti-Western sentiment already smoldering in Afghanistan over abuses by U.S.-led foreign troops.

The U.S. rushed to condemn the Koran burning, with U.S. President Barack Obama apologizing to the Afghan people for what he said was a mistake and pledging the perpetrators would be punished.

But furious Afghans took to the streets across the country and tried to attack French, Norwegian, U.N. and U.S. bases, shouting "Death to America.”

Among the dead were two U.S. troops killed when an Afghan soldier turned his weapon on them as protesters approached their base in eastern Afghanistan.