US soldiers burned Taliban corpses

US soldiers in Afghanistan burned the bodies of dead Taliban and taunted their opponents about the corpses in an act deeply offensive to Muslims and in breach of the Geneva conventions. The alleged incident was filmed by a freelance photojournalist embedded with a US Army unit in the hills near the southern city of Kandahar this month. Its authenticity does not appear to be in serious question. The footage, aired by the Australian SBS network, was taken by Stephen Dupont, an Australian journalist with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. It shows a group of soldiers watching as two corpses a few yards away are consumed in flames. Two soldiers then reportedly sent taunting messages apparently directed at a nearby village the soldiers seemed to believe had been sheltering the insurgents. "You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burnt," one message allegedly ran. "You are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies." The broadcast, organized by the Army's psychological operations (psy-ops) unit, went on to say: "You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Taliban but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion, and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are." Dupont said the messages were broadcast in the local language, and translated into English for him by psy-ops troops. The video showed military vehicles fitted with speakers and playing loud music. The actions are a direct violation of Islamic tradition in Afghanistan, where the dead are buried with their heads pointing north, their feet south, and only their faces turned to Mecca in the west. Nor is cremation a Muslim custom; bodies are normally washed, wrapped in white cloth and buried within 24 hours of death. Dupont said the soldiers told him they were burning the bodies "for hygienic reasons." But in an interview with the Australian network, he said broadcasts later by the psychological unit showed it was aware the cremation was a desecration. "They used that as psychological warfare, I guess you'd call it," Dupont said. "They deliberately wanted to incite that much anger from the Taliban so the Taliban would attack them. That's the only way they can find them." Under the Geneva conventions the burial of war dead "should be honorable, and, if possible, according to the rites of the religion to which the deceased belonged." The tape has not been officially verified. However, Major Matthew Mclaughlin, a spokesman for US Central Command in Florida, said that "It certainly appears to be what it purports to be." Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy head of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, said body-burning was "outrageous," and the US was "ignoring the basic principles of international humanitarian law." Faiz Mohammed, a top cleric in northern Kunduz province, warned: "This is against Islam. Afghans will be shocked by this news. It is so humiliating, and there will be very dangerous consequences from it." "Abu Ghraib ruined the reputation of the Americans in Iraq and to me this is even worse," he said. Anger also was evident in the streets. "If they continue to carry out such actions against us, our people will change their policy and react with the same policy against them," said Mehrajuddin, a resident of Kabul, who like many Afghans uses only one name. Another man in the capital, Zahidullah, said the reported abuse was like atrocities committed by Soviet troops, who were driven out of Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade of occupation. He warned that the same could happen to US forces. "Their future will be like the Russians," Zahidullah said. The Muslim world has been angered by a litany of controversies, ranging from reports of brutal treatment of prisoners by the military, the alleged desecration of the Koran at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, and the shocking abuse at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq. All have been interpreted as proof that the US holds Islam in contempt. Not only has damage to the US image been immense; five months ago, the Koran claims provoked anti-US riots in Afghanistan, in which 15 people died. In Kabul, the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai insisted that those responsible for the incident must be punished. "We strongly condemn any disrespect to human bodies, regardless of whether they are those of enemies or friends," a spokesman said. US military commanders in Afghanistan called the episode "repugnant." They said the Army's criminal investigation division was considering charges that included "burning of dead enemy combatant bodies under inappropriate circumstances." A State Department spokesman said: "These are very serious allegations. If there is wrongdoing, those responsible will be held to account." Worried about the potential backlash over the incident, the State Department said it instructed US embassies around the globe to tell local governments that the reported abuse did not reflect US values. One Bush administration official told the New York Times that the tapes spelt "really bad news."