REUTERS/Stringer
The already tense US and Nato ties with Afghanistan were dealt another blow yesterday when photographs appeared in an American newspaper of US soldiers posing with the maimed bodies of dead Afghan insurgents.
Senior US officials and Nato's top commander in the country, US General John Allen, moved quickly to condemn the pictures even before they were published by the Los Angeles Times, which received them from a soldier.
"The actions of the individuals photographed do not represent the policies of the International Security Assistance Force or the US Army," Allen said, adding that an investigation into the incident was under way.
In one of the pictures a paratrooper posed next to an unofficial patch placed beside a body that read "Zombie Hunter"; in another, soldiers posed with Afghan police holding the severed legs of an insurgent bomber.
Two soldiers in another frame held a dead insurgent's hand with the middle finger raised.
The LA Times said the 82nd Airborne Division soldiers had been at a police station in Afghanistan's Zabol province in February 2010, and revisited it several months later. The pictures were taken on both occasions.
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said that publication of the pictures could prompt further attacks against security forces.
The appearance of some of the 18 pictures, taken in 2010, comes at a sensitive time in US-Afghan relations, following the release of a video in January that showed four US marines urinating on Afghan insurgent corpses.
The inadvertent burning of copies of the Koran at a major Nato air base triggered riots that left 30 dead and led to the deaths of six Americans.
And last month a US army sergeant killed 17 civilians during a shooting rampage in two southern Afghan villages, prompting Afghan President Hamid Karzai to demand that foreign soldiers confine themselves to major bases.
Taliban insurgents launched suicide attacks in Kabul and three provinces at the weekend, claiming the assault was launched in retaliation for all three incidents.
source:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/
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