Bowser quotes only part of the story, where people say that there was already unrest before the Koran bit set it off. Doesn't mean that the Newsweek story had nothing to do with it.

The whole story, with both sides, can be found here.

From this story:

Protests spread from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Indonesia and Arab countries on Friday, stoked by mosque imams' sermons during Friday prayers.

The death toll in a week of rioting in Afghanistan rose to at least 15 and several hundred clerics issued a statement Sunday saying they would call for a jihad against the U.S. if those responsible for the alleged desecration were not handed over to an Islamic country for punishment within three days.

The statement was read by a senior official after clerics met in a mosque in Faizabad, capital of the northeastern Badakhstan province.

...A populist politician in Pakistan called a press conference to draw attention to the claim, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia issued strongly worded statements, and protests erupted in the Afghan city of Jalalabad and spread.

The item was picked up by Muslim media outlets, some of which have depicted the toilet allegation as a fact rather than a claim made by an unnamed source. Pakistan's Dawn daily stated in an editorial -- without qualification -- that "the desecration of the Holy Koran at Guantanamo ... has sent a wave of revulsion across the Muslim world."

Now, the "existing unrest" reference appears:

Myers said at the Pentagon briefing Thursday that according to U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, the Jalalabad protests had more to do with the political situation on the ground than anger about the report.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a U.S. ally, has also suggested that foreign elements and "enemies of peace" were responsible for the violent rioting.

Some regional observers appear to agree that the Koran issue was merely a spark that ignited a highly-flammable situation - in Afghanistan, at least.

"They are fed up with the United States and they just needed a spark to vent their feelings," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist considered an authority on the Pakistan-Afghan tribal areas.

The whole story is worth reading.