WASHINGTON: US magazine Newsweek backed away Sunday from a Holy Quran abuse account saying it was wrong to report that the Holy Book was desecrated at Guantanamo Bay naval base by American interrogators.

It said a US military investigation had failed to corroborate the story.

In the story, the magazine had cited sources as saying investigators looking into abuses at the military prison found interrogators "had placed Qurans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet."

Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita blamed Newsweek's report for the violent protests that broke out across the Muslim world.

"People are dying. They are burning American flags. Our forces are in danger," he told CNN.

At least 15 people were died and dozens injured when thousands of demonstrators marched in Afghanistan and other parts of the Muslim world following the article's publication last week, officials and eyewitnesses said.

As well as the deaths in Afghanistan, more than 100 people have been injured in violent protests across the Muslim world, from Pakistan to Indonesia.

In its latest edition, Newsweek's editor writes that its original source is not sure where he saw the assertion.

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong," Newsweek's editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue that was due to appear on news stands on Monday.

Whitaker said Newsweek wanted to "extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst".

In its new account, the magazine said that one of its reporters spoke to "his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Quran, including a toilet incident".

"But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced" in a forthcoming report by the US military, the magazine added.

Whitaker told Reuters news agency that he no longer knew whether the occurrence was genuine.

The Pentagon has said there is no substance to the specific allegation.

Newsweek's Washington bureau chief, Dan Klaidman, said the apparent error was "terribly unfortunate," and he offered the magazine's sympathies to the victims.