The deaths occurred in Faizabad, capital of Badakshan province, when more than 1,000 people demonstrated against the alleged abuse of the Quran at the US detention facility of Guantanamo Bay, deputy provincial governor Shams-ul Rehman told AFP.
“Three people were killed and 21 others including three policemen were injured in demonstrations today,” he said.
Angry protesters torched the office of Focus Canada, an aid agency mainly funded by the Aga Khan, the billionaire spiritual leader of the world’s 15 million Shia Ismaili Muslims.
Protesters shouting anti-American slogans were still marching through the streets of the city “but now it is more under control”, the deputy governor added.
The US has promised an inquiry and action against soldiers at the detention center who allegedly defiled copies of the Muslim holy book by leaving them in toilet cubicles and stuffing one down a lavatory to rattle Muslim prisoners.
Police and security forces had been on high alert across Afghanistan after seven people died and nearly 80 others were wounded in violent clashes between protestors and government forces that began Tuesday.
They are the worst anti-US demonstrations since the fall of the hardline Islamic Taleban regime in late 2001.
Two protesters were killed on Thursday when gunfire broke out as police stopped them marching into the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad from a district to the northwest.
On Wednesday four people died also in Jalalabad when police opened fire to control a mob that torched the buildings of several aid agencies, the Pakistani consulate and the governor’s house.
One person died and four were wounded when rioters attacked a police station in Wardak province, which borders Kabul, on Thursday. A total of 10 of the 32 Afghan provinces were affected.
Demonstrations were also held in a number of cities across neighbouring Pakistan and in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used an appearance before a Senate committee on Thursday to make a special statement “directly to Muslims in America and throughout the world” on the reported incidents.
“Disrespect for the holy Quran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States,” she said.