'Newsweek' magazine has started to distance itself from the story that caused riots to break out in the Muslim world last week leaving at least 15 people dead. The biggest protests were in Afghanistan while other demonstrations took place in Pakistan and Indonesia last week.

The May 9 issue of 'Newsweek' reported that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba had desecrated a copy of the Quran by flushing it down the toilet as part of its attempts to get prisoners to talk. Now, the weekly news magazine admits the story may not be accurate.

Editor Mark Whitaker published an apology in the May 23 issue of 'Newsweek.' 'We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst,' Whitaker wrote with regret.

Meanwhile, officials at the Pentagon have blamed the 'Newsweek' report for the violence of the past week. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita told CNN, 'People are dying. They are burning American flags. Our forces are in danger.'

Dan Klaidman, the Washington bureau chief at 'Newsweek' said that the report was manipulated by anti-American forces. 'It's clear that people seized on the Newsweek report to advance their own agendas, and that that was part of it,' he said. 'But I also think that there's an enormous amount of pent-up and not-so-pent-up anti-American rage and sentiment in that region. There are a lot of people who think that our war on terror and our war in Iraq is a much wider war against Islam,' Klaidman added.

The Army will continue to investigate the alleged incident. There were at least two references to it in various documents 'Newsweek' uncovered including a report that 23 inmates at Guantanamo Bay tried to commit suicide in August 2003 when a guard dropped a Quran and stomped on it.

Despite this step back by 'Newsweek,' it is unlikely that this story will go away any time soon.