US: A video aired by Australian television, showing US soldiers in Afghanistan allegedly burning two dead Taliban fighters and using the charred bodies in an attempt to taunt other enemy forces in the area, has provoked huge controversy in the US.
According to an Australian photo-journalist who reportedly witnessed the event, the Taliban bodies were intentionally laid out on the ground to face Mecca, as a deliberate desecration of Muslim beliefs. Two US soldiers, said to be specialists in psychological operations, were pictured reciting propaganda messages aimed at Taliban fighters in surrounding mountains.
The broadcast on Wednesday prompted the US military to order an immediate criminal investigation. Central Command, which oversees US military operations in the region, issued a statement decrying any desecration of enemy combatants as contrary to US policy and the Geneva Conventions.
"This command does not condone the mistreatment of enemy combatants or the desecration of their religious and cultural beliefs," Maj Gen Jason Kamiya, the top US tactical commander in Afghanistan, said in a separate statement.
At the Pentagon, officials expressed concern privately that the alleged incident could trigger violent protests in Afghanistan.
"Given the religious sensitivities in that part of the world, there's a desire to step out in front of the incident and show we're moving quickly to investigate," a senior official said.
The images, broadcast on the Australian programme Dateline, were said to have been shot early this month by Stephen DuPont while he was travelling with an unidentified US military unit in southern Afghanistan.
John Martinkus, a Dateline journalist who narrated the broadcast, said the two men whose bodies were burned had been killed the night before by US soldiers during a fight near the village of Gonbaz.
The footage showed flames consuming two charred corpses. Five US soldiers stood and watched from a rocky ledge.
Two soldiers were then pictured reading messages blared by loudspeakers toward other enemy fighters within earshot.
"Attention, Taliban, you are cowardly dogs," read one soldier, identified as Sgt Jim Baker. "You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burnt. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be."
Martinkus reported the soldiers had said they burned the bodies "for hygiene purposes", but he added that given the remote location, well away from the village, "this appears to make no sense".
