Terry Jones says he will not burn Quran on 9/ 11

The pastor of a small Florida church said on Friday he does not plan to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and hopes a Muslim imam will organize a meeting with those planning an Islamic center near the site of the New York attacks.

"Right now we have plans not to do it," Pastor Terry Jones, of Gainesville, Florida, told ABC's "Good Morning America."

"We believe that the imam is going to keep his word, what he promised us yesterday ... We believe that we are, as he said, and promised, going to meet with the imam in New York tomorrow."

Jones had threatened earlier to "rethink" his decision to abandon plans for a weekend Quran-burning event that has drawn global outrage.

Hours after calling off the much-criticized ceremony to mark Saturday's anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Jones rowed back and said it had merely been suspended.

"Right now we are just putting a temporary hold upon our planned event," he said.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates had called the pastor of the tiny evangelical church, the Dove World Outreach Center, to express "grave concern" that the Quran burning "would put the lives of our forces at risk, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Jones later told journalists outside his church that he was calling off his plan, which had caused worldwide alarm and raised tensions over this year's anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.

He confirmed Gates' call but linked his decision to what he said was an agreement by Muslim leaders -- which they denied -- to relocate an Islamic cultural center and mosque planned close to the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York.

The proposed location has drawn opposition from many Americans who say it is insensitive to families of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

"The imam has agreed to move the mosque, we have agreed to cancel our event on Saturday," Jones said.

Right now we are just putting a temporary hold upon our planned event

Terry Jones

Confusion over mosque "deal"

He said he would fly to New York on Saturday with Imam Muhammad Musri, head of the Islamic Society of Central Florida to meet the New York imam at the center of the controversy, Feisal Abdul Rauf.

But Rauf said in a statement he was surprised by the announcement. "I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Qurans. However, I have not spoken to Pastor Jones or Imam Musri. I am surprised by their announcement," he said.

"We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony," he said.

Sharif el-Gamal, the project developer for the New York mosque, said in a statement: "It is untrue that the community center known as park 51 in lower Manhattan is being moved. The project will proceed as planned. What is being reported in the media today is a falsehood."

Musri conceded to reporters: "This is not a done deal yet. This is a brokered deal," he said. He said he had no fixed time for him and Jones to meet Rauf in New York.

We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony

Feisal Abdul Rauf

International condemnation

Earlier, world leaders had joined Obama in denouncing Jones' plan to burn copies of the Islamic holy book on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The international police agency Interpol warned governments worldwide of an increased risk of terrorist attacks if the burning went ahead, and the U.S. State Department issued a warning to Americans traveling overseas.

Jones has said Jesus would approve of his plan for "Burn a Quran Day," which he called a reprisal for Islamist terrorism.

The United States has powerful legal protections for the right to free speech and there was little law enforcement authorities could do to stop Jones from going ahead, other than citing him under local bylaws against public burning.

Many people, both conservative and liberal, dismissed the threat as an attention-seeking stunt by the preacher.

"This is a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaeda," Obama said in an ABC television interview.

"You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities."

The U.S. president, who has sought to improve relations with Muslims worldwide, spoke out in an effort to stop Jones from going ahead and head off growing anger among many Muslims.

Insults to Islam, no matter their size or scope, have often been met with huge protests and violence around the world. One such outburst was sparked when a Danish newspaper published a cartoon mocking the Prophet Mohammad in 2005.

Pentagon spokesman Morrell said earlier in the day that there was intense debate within the administration over whether to call Jones. Officials feared of setting a precedent that could inspire copy-cat "extremists."

Jones' plan was condemned by foreign governments, international church groups, U.S. religious and political leaders and military commanders.

It also threatened to undermine Obama's efforts to reach out to the world's more than one billion Muslims at a time when he is trying to advance the Middle East peace process and build solidarity against Iran over its disputed nuclear program.

This is a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaeda

President Obama

One Afghan dead and 11 inured in anti-Quran-burning protests

One protester was shot dead and several were wounded outside a German-run NATO base in northeast Afghanistan and NATO said it was investigating. Demonstrations later spread to the capital, Kabul, and at least four other provinces.

Officials said the German-run base was singled out after German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday paid tribute to freedom of speech at a ceremony for a Dane whose cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad sparked deadly protests five years ago.

Thousands of Afghans hurled rocks at a NATO military outpost on Friday as fury built across the Muslim world against a U.S. pastor's threats to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11. Officials say at least 11 people have been injured.

In a turbulent start to the festival of Eid al-Fitr, when Muslims worldwide mark the end of the Ramadan fasting month, leaders of countries including Afghanistan and Indonesia issued dire warnings against the provocative act.

It was unclear if radical Florida evangelist Terry Jones had finally decided to call off the event, which he had planned for Saturday's ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in protest at the "evil of Islam".

"We have heard that in the U.S., a pastor has decided to insult Qurans. Now although we have heard that they are not doing this, we tell them they should not even think of it," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said.

"By burning the Quran they cannot harm it. The Quran is in the hearts and minds of one and a half billion people. (But) insulting the Quran is an insult to nations," Karzai said in an Eid message.

Protestors threw rocks at the small German-held base in the remote town of Fayzabad in northeast Afghanistan, after traditional prayers for Eid, police said.

"They numbered in their thousands, it is a big crowd," provincial deputy police chief Sayed Hassan Jafary told AFP.

"People almost from all city mosques gathered," he said, adding that the crowd chanted "death to America."

In neighboring Pakistan, hundreds rallied in the central city of Multan and the southern metropolis of Karachi, torching U.S. flags and calling for Jones to be hanged.

"We have heard that they have postponed the plans to burn the Holy Quran, but it is not enough. We will continue to raise our voice so that it never happens again," cleric Mufti Hidayatullah Pasroori said in Multan.

In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, also saw protests.

"This threatens peace and international security. This is something that endangers harmony among religious people," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a nationally televised address.

"I'm of course aware of the reported cancellation of the deplorable act by Terry Jones. However, none of us can be complacent until such a despicable idea is totally extinguished," he said.

Najib Razak, prime minister of Muslim-majority Malaysia, warned the fraught relationship between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds would enter "a very dangerous chapter" if the burning went ahead.

We have heard that in the U.S., a pastor has decided to insult Qurans. Now although we have heard that they are not doing this, we tell them they should not even think of it

Afghan President Hamid Karzai

"I hope the pastor will have a change of heart because by that single act of abhorrence... it will ignite the feelings of Muslims throughout the world, the consequences of which I fear would be very, very costly," he told reporters.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya called Jones an "insane lunatic" and the Quran "our constitution."

The imam of Mecca, Saleh bin Humaid, said Jones's threat was "a form of terrorism and an incitement to terrorism".

Hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his part said the plan to burn the Quran was a "Zionist plot" that would end up in the speedy "annihilation" of Israel.

Jones's threat is a form of terrorism and an incitement to terrorism

The imam of Mecca, Saleh bin Humaid

Iraq’s top Shiite cleric warns against Quran burning

Iraq's top Shiite cleric warned of "terrible" consequences if a Florida church followed through on plans, now apparently suspended, to burn hundreds of Qurans, a statement from his office said Friday.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called on Muslims to exercise restraint in their reaction to the "shameful" plans for a mass immolation of the Muslim holy book on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"This shameful behavior does not correspond with the responsibilities of religious leadership, which are to confirm the values of peaceful cohabitation based on mutual respect between people of different faiths," he said in a statement released by his office in the holy Shiite city of Najaf.

"I call on the concerned parties in the United States to stop this horrible act because if it happens, it will have terrible consequences," Sistani said.

"The Marjaiya (the Shiite spiritual leadership in Iraq) denounce this aggression against the Quran and call on Muslims to exercise maximum restraint, and for them not to harm Christians," he said.

Sistani, who heads the four-person Marjaiya, is revered by his followers in Shiite-majority Iraq and his stature dwarfs that of any politician here, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, himself a Shiite.

Quran burning threat ignites debate on media coverage

The Florida pastor's threat to burn the Quran on September 11 has sparked a soul-searching debate in the media over the amount of coverage being devoted to the deliberately provocative event.

Before Pastor Jones suspended his plan to set fire to the Quran, Fox News said it would not cover the stunt, making the Rupert Murdoch-owned television network the first major news outlet to turn its back on the story.

And the U.S. news agency the Associated Press, citing a policy of "not to provide coverage of events that are gratuitously manufactured to provoke and offend," said it would not distribute images that show Qurans being burned.

"This is really about just using some judgment," said Michael Clemente, senior vice president at Fox News.

"He's one guy in the middle of the woods with 50 people in his congregation who's decided to try, I gather, to bring some attention to himself by saying he's going to burn a Quran," Clemente told The Baltimore Sun. "Well, you know what, there are many more important things going on in the world than that."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed hope during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations this week that the news media would ignore Jones's book-burning "as an act of patriotism."

Clinton's tongue-in-cheek remarks about media restraint triggered laughter from the crowd but the potential for violence stemming from the actions of a fringe religious group did provoke a bout of self-examination in the media.

"What would happen if the media just didn't cover the Quran-burning preacher?" Garrett Graff, editor of The Washingtonian magazine, asked on his Twitter feed. "Not every nut deserves 15 minutes."

"The story of this kooky pastor seems to me to be substantially overplayed, with potentially dangerous consequences," The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz said on his blog, "Media Notes."

He's one guy in the middle of the woods with 50 people in his congregation who's decided to try, I gather, to bring some attention to himself by saying he's going to burn a Quran

Michael Clemente, senior vice president at Fox News

"Why does the world need to follow the antics of one obscure book-burner in Florida?" Kurtz asked. "You can say we're just covering the story, but our combined megaphone has made it into an international story."

Dan Kennedy, an assistant professor of journalism at Boston's Northeastern University, noted that the Quran burning coverage coincided with tensions over plans to build an Islamic community center near the site of the September 11 attacks in New York.

News organizations that have been "pounding away week after week about the Ground Zero mosque have some complicity" in turning the Quran burning plan into front-page headlines, Kennedy told AFP.

"Maybe this minister would have gone ahead and held a Quran-burning anyway," he said. "But I think all of the hateful, not to mention inaccurate, public discussion about the Islamic center near Ground Zero helped to create an atmosphere in which this Quran-burning suddenly seemed, at least to a few people, like a real good idea.

"I don't think that the media ought to ignore it," Kennedy added, but the coverage should be "proportionate."

Mike Thomas, a columnist for Florida's Orlando Sentinel newspaper, said the media bears responsibility for promoting a "sad-sack preacher, lucky to draw 50 people" to his church into an international figure.

"I ask you: If a sad little man burns some Qurans in the woods, and the media aren't there to film it, is it news?" he asked. "Of course not."

"We could help head off such future nonsense if we folded up the circus tent and left Jones alone with his blowtorch and 30 followers," he said. "Without us, this book burning would be little more than a grainy video on YouTube."

Time magazine's television critic James Poniewozik said the Quran burning story however had generated a momentum that meant it can no longer be ignored.

"This is, unfortunately, one of those cases in which, by having become news, the story is now making legitimate news," Poniewozik wrote.

Why does the world need to follow the antics of one obscure book-burner in Florida?

The Washington Post\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Howard Kurtz

"World leaders and military leaders have weighed in, there is real international attention to the story and the prospect of real-world, non-virtual protest and unrest if the burning goes on," he said.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the media attention on Pastor Jones has ended up giving "a lot of weight to an insignificant action."

"That's what he he wants. He wants this attention," he said. "I think in a way he succeeded, he succeeded in distracting the media from the main issues.

"Maybe this is a teachable moment for all of us," Awad added.

I think in a way he succeeded, he succeeded in distracting the media from the main issues

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations