Related Event: Protests on Quran Abuse

The Pentagon confirmed that a soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book, and that an interrogator stepped on a Quran.

In other confirmed incidents, a guard's urine came through an air vent and splashed on a detainee and his Quran, prison guards through water balloons causing an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; and a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran.

The findings, released on Friday evening, were among the results of an investigation last month by Brigadier General Jay Hood, the commander of the detention centre in Cuba, which was triggered by a Newsweek magazine report.

He retracted that a US soldier had flushed one Guantanamo Bay detainee's Quran down a toilet.

"First off, I'd like you to know that we have found no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Quran down the toilet."

Hood said in a written statement, along with the new details, that his investigation "revealed a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling of the Quran dating back almost two-and-a-half years."

Hood said that of nine mishandling cases that were studied in detail after reviewing thousands of pages of written records five were confirmed to have happened.

He could not determine conclusively whether the four others took place.

A spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the US Southern Command policy calls for "serious, respectful and appropriate" handling of the Quran.

The allegations of Quran desecration stirred worldwide controversy and led to widespread anti-American demonstrations across Muslim nations.