Quran desecration 'unpardonable'

"Our government believes that the most terrible act has taken place," Musharraf said.

"Whoever has done it must be punished. The incident must be investigated, and those responsible should be taken to task," he told reporters, during a two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates.

"It is unpardonable," he added.

Pakistan's senate on Wednesday demanded an impartial international probe into the reported desecration, saying in a resolution adopted unanimously that "this reprehensible act of the sacrilege has hurt the sentiments of Muslims the world over."

Protests erupted in Pakistan, a key ally in the US-led war on terror, after a report in Newsweek magazine in early May said Guantanamo Bay interrogators threw a Koran in a toilet to rattle Muslim inmates.

The Pentagon, which wrapped up an investigation Saturday, said US military personnel at Guantanamo Bay once kicked the Koran, and a copy was sprayed with urine in another incident, but overall US soldiers at the camp handled the Islamic holy book with respect.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan regrets the desecration of the Quran at the US' Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba and welcomes a US investigation into abuse of the Muslim holy book, the Afghan foreign minister said yesterday.