The Newsweek magazine retracted on Monday a report that claimed US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had desecrated the Koran, and has caused widespread protests across the Muslim world.

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said in a statement.

The move came a day after the magazine said that parts of the article might be wrong. "We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst," Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue, due to be on US newsstand on Monday.

Earlier on Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the article "has had serious consequences" and had damaged US image abroad. "People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged," he said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman also said on Monday the Newsweek article "was irresponsible and had significant consequences that reverberated throughout Muslim communities around the world."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has described the report as "appalling" and said it had created a "very major problem" for Washington in the Muslim world.

A Newsweek story in its issue dated May 9 reported that American military investigators had found evidence that interrogators at the Guantanamo prison facility had flushed a Koran down a toilet, to get inmates there to talk.

The article has sparked violent protests in Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, Pakistan and other Muslim countries.

Source: Xinhua