At the Pentagon, President Barack Obama said the US was not at war with Islam.Earlier, the pastor behind the threat to burn Korans in Florida said the event has been cancelled permanently.
"We will definitely not burn the Koran, no," the Reverend Terry Jones told NBC's Today show. "Not today, not ever," he said when pressed about whether his planned demonstration might happen at a later date.
Speaking at a memorial event at the Pentagon - which was also hit by an airliner on 11 September 2001 - President Obama paid tribute to those who died in the attacks, saying America's greatest weapon was to stay true to itself.
"It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was Al-Qaeda," he said. "We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust," he said.
Saturday saw new protests in mainly Muslim countries over the Koran-burning proposal, with rallies reported in Somalia and Afghanistan. Pastor Terry Jones had said he hoped to meet a leading imam to discuss the proposal for the Islamic centre, to be located a short distance from Ground Zero, the WTC site.
He said he had suspended the book-burning only because he had received a guarantee, from an imam in Florida, that the centre would be moved. But the planners of the Islamic centre have said they did not speak to the Florida imam, and would not be moving their project.
Mr Abdul Rauf said on Friday that he was "prepared to consider meeting with anyone who is seriously committed to pursuing peace" but added that he had no current plans to meet Mr Jones. Mr Jones is the pastor of the tiny and previously little-known Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, and author of a book entitled Islam is of the Devil. He had planned to stage an International Burn a Koran Day on Saturday, saying the book was "evil". But pressure was put on the pastor to cancel the burning. The FBI visited Mr Jones to urge him to reconsider his plans and he was telephoned by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
In his remarks on Friday, Mr Obama denied that his administration's intervention in the affair had elevated it to greater prominence. He appealed to Americans to respect the "inalienable" right of religious freedom and said he hoped the preacher would abandon his plan to burn the Koran, as it could add to the dangers facing US soldiers serving abroad. "This is a way of endangering our troops, our sons and daughters... you don't play games with that," he told reporters.
Source; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11269681
This pastor is merely an obscure cult leader but it is the Media which enlighten his campaign to gain the World's attention. So how ironic it is for Obama to disclaim his nation's anti-Islamic rhetoric yet allows such groups to pose a challenge to the Muslim world.
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