Excerpt:
A senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan apologized on Wednesday for a "highly offensive" leaflet which contained a passage from the Koran used in the Taliban militants' banner superimposed on to the image of a dog.
The Taliban said the leaflet showed American hatred of Islam, adding that it had launched a suicide attack near the entrance to the U.S. Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul, in revenge.
The image, distributed by U.S. forces in Parwan province, north of Kabul, on Tuesday, showed a section of the Taliban's banner superimposed onto the side of a dog - an animal considered unclean by Muslims. The banner contains a passage from the Koran in Arabic.