KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghans enraged by the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book at a U.S. prison staged a third day of violent protests Thursday, burning an American flag in the capital and ransacking relief group offices to the south as demonstrations spread to neighboring Pakistan...

...The trigger of the unrest was a brief report in the May 9 edition of Newsweek magazine that interrogators at the U.S. prison on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed Qurans in washrooms to unsettle suspects, and in one case "flushed a holy book down the toilet."...

...At the Pentagon, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that U.S. commanders in Afghanistan believe that local political factions - and not the reports about the alleged desecration - are driving the violence in Jalalabad.

Myers said the military is investigating the allegation but so far has not been able to confirm it. In one case, an inmate, in an act of defiance, ripped pages out of his Quran and stuffed them into the toilet in an attempt to back up the plumbing, Myers said, citing logs from the prison...