Tuesday, May 17 2005 08:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Newsweek magazine has retracted an article alleging abuse of the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, which sparked deadly anti-US protests in Afghanistan and other Islamic countries.

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," the magazine said yesterday (May 16, 2005) in a one-sentence statement from editor Mark Whitaker.

The retraction came a day after Newsweek acknowledged parts of the article, which appeared in the May 9 edition, may not be accurate, and followed harsh criticism of the newsweekly by US officials.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had described the Newsweek report as "appalling" and said it had created a "very major problem" for Washington in the Muslim world.

The White House had said a Newsweek apology on Sunday (May 15, 2005) did not go far enough.

"There is a certain journalistic standard that should be met, and in this case it was not met," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "The report was not accurate, and it was based on a single anonymous source who cannot personally substantiate the report."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "It's appalling, really, that an article that was unfounded to begin with has caused so much harm, including loss of life."

Newsweek quoted an unidentified US official as saying that a probe into allegations of prisoner abuse contained in FBI e-mails found that Guantanamo interrogators had thrown a Quran into a toilet to rattle Muslim prisoners.