The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islamic philosophy said yesterday he was determined to go through with his plan to burn copies of the Koran on September 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call it off.

"We are still determined to it, yes," the Rev Terry Jones told the CBS Early Show.

Jones says he has received more than 100 death threats and has started wearing a .40-calibre pistol strapped to his hip since announcing his plan to burn the book Muslims consider the word of God and insist be treated with the utmost respect. The 58-year-old minister proclaimed in July that he would stage "International Burn-a-Quran Day". Supporters have been mailing copies of the holy text to his Gainesville church of about 50 followers to be incinerated in a bonfire on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the September 11 2001 attacks.

The US commander in Afghanistan, Gen David Petraeus, took the rare step of a military leader taking a position on a domestic matter when he warned in an e-mail to news agencies that "images of the burning of a Koran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan - and around the world - to inflame public opinion and incite violence".

Jones responded that he is also concerned but is "wondering, 'When do we stop?"' He refused to cancel the protest at his Dove World Outreach Centre, but said he was still praying about it.

"How much do we back down? How many times do we back down?" Jones said.

"Instead of us backing down, maybe it's time to stand up. Maybe it's time to send a message to radical Islam that we will not tolerate their behaviour."

In Afghanistan, Jones's planned Koran burning continued to provoke outrage.

"It is the duty of Muslims to react," said Mohammad Mukhtar, a cleric and candidate for the Afghan parliament in the September 18 election.

"When their holy book Koran gets burned in public, then there is nothing left. If this happens, I think the first and most important reaction will be that, wherever Americans are seen, they will be killed. No matter where they will be in the world they will be killed."

The Koran, according to Jones, is "evil" because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behaviour among Muslims.

Muslims consider the Koran along with any printed material containing its verses or the name of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad to be sacred.

Jones's Dove Outreach Centre is independent of any denomination. It follows the Pentecostal tradition, which teaches that the Holy Spirit can manifest itself in the modern day. Pentecostals often view themselves as engaged in spiritual warfare against satanic forces.

The world's leading Sunni institution of learning, Al-Azhar University in Egypt, accused the church of stirring up hate and discrimination, and called on other US churches to speak out against it.

Last month, Indonesian Muslims protested outside the US Embassy in Jakarta, threatening violence if Jones goes through with it.

Jones gained some local notoriety last year when he posted signs in front of his church declaring "Islam is of the Devil". But his Koran-burning idea attracted wider attention. It drew rebukes from Muslim nations and at home as an emotional debate was taking shape over the proposed Islamic centre near the World Trade Centre site in New York.

His actions most likely would be protected by the First Amendment's right to free speech. The US Supreme Court has made clear in several landmark rulings that speech deemed offensive to many people, even the majority of people, cannot be suppressed by the government unless it is clearly directed to intimidate someone or amounts to an incitement to violence, legal experts said.

David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Barack Obama told CNN: "The reverend may have the right to do what he's doing but it's not right. It's not consistent with our values ... I hope that his conscience and his good sense will take hold."

The fire department has denied Jones a required burn permit, but he said lawyers told him he had the right to burn the Korans, with or without the city's permission.

Religious leaders in this city of 125000 also criticised the preacher. At least two dozen Christian churches, Jewish temples and Muslim organisations in the city have mobilised to plan inclusive events, including reading from the Koran at weekend services.