France and Germany are following the US and Britain in withdrawing civilian staff from Afghan government institutions in the wake of the killing of two senior US Nato officers.

Afghan authorities are hunting a 25-year-old Afghan policeman believed to have shot the officers dead at the interior ministry in Kabul on Saturday.

France and Germany said they were acting on security concerns. Afghans saw new violence on Sunday at protests over a Koran-burning incident. Several American troops were injured in a grenade attack in Afghanistan, hours after President Karzai went on national television to appeal for calm amid anger at the burning of copies of the Koran at a US military base. Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker said tensions were “running very high”, adding that he thought “we need to let things calm down, return to a more normal atmosphere, and then get on with business”. “This is not the time to decide that we’re done here. We have got to redouble our efforts. We’ve got to create a situation in which al-Qaeda is not coming back,” he told CNN.

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