KABUL: Furious Afghans threw rocks and screamed “death to America” on Wednesday, setting fire to shops and vehicles as gunshots rang out at protests against Korans being burnt at a US-run military base.

At least one person was killed and 21 others were wounded as the country was swept by protests, which were concentrated in the Afghan capital Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad, where a group of students set fire to an effigy of US President Barack Obama.

The US embassy in Kabul declared that it was on lockdown and Afghan police said that they were dispatching reinforcements to stop an angry mob that was torching cars and attacking shops, from marching into the center of the capital.

Hundreds of people poured onto a road in Jalalabad, throwing stones at Camp Phoenix, where troops guarding the US military base fired into the air and black smoke from burning tires rose, an Agence France-Presse photographer said.

Afghanistan is a deeply religious country where slights against Islam have frequently provoked violent protests and Afghans were incensed that any Western troops could be so insensitive, 10 years after the 2001 US-led invasion.

The US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, apologized and ordered an investigation of the incident, admitting that religious materials, including Korans “were inadvertently taken to an incineration facility.”

He also ordered that all troops would be trained in the “proper handling of religious materials no later than March 3.”

The Kabul demonstrators attacked anti-riot police, forcing them to retreat and shots were fired as the crowd tried to march on the center of the capital, wounding at least 11 people, according to a health ministry official.

“Two of them are in critical condition,” the official told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity.

Police spokesman Ashmat Estanakzai denied that the police opened fire, but said that the demonstration “got violent after they attacked Camp Phoenix” and blocked the key highway leading east toward the Pakistani border.

A second protest erupted in western Kabul, involving about 100 university students, another police spokesman said.

In Jalalabad, there were pockets of demonstrations across the eastern city. Gunshots were heard, but police did not confirm the firing. Crowds threw rocks at cars and they set up fires in the streets, an Agence France-Presse reporter said.

Doctor Ahmad Ali said that one person was killed and 10 others had been admitted to the Jalalabad hospital with gunshot wounds.

“I saw the body myself. He is a young man from the protests,” he added.

More than 1,000 demonstrators, many of them university students, blocked the highway shouting “Death to Americans, Death to Obama,” an Agence France-Presse reporter said.

Elsewhere in the country, about 800 gathered in the Baraki Barak district center in Logar province, a flashpoint for Taliban violence south of Kabul, shouting anti-US slogans, district chief Sayed Wakil Agha said.