US soldiers 'desecrated Taliban bodies': TV report

American soldiers in Afghanistan desecrated the bodies of Taliban fighters by burning them, violating Islamic tradition, then taunted a nearby village about the act, an Australian television network reported today.

The US military said it was investigating the report.

The SBS television network broadcast video footage on its respected Dateline current affairs programme purportedly showing US soldiers burning the bodies of two suspected Taliban fighters in the hills outside the southern village of Gonbaz, near the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

SBS said the footage was taken by a freelance journalist, Stephen Dupont, who told The Associated Press he was embedded with the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the US Army earlier this month. Dupont said the body burning happened on October 1.

The authenticity of the footage could not immediately be verified.

In the footage, two soldiers who spoke with American accents and were identified by SBS as being part of a US Army psychological operations unit, later read taunting messages in English that the SBS said were broadcast to the village, which was believed to be harbouring Taliban soldiers.

“Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be,” said one message, read out by a soldier identified by SBS as Sgt Jim Baker.

“We know who you are,” another unnamed soldier said, according to a transcript of the programme provided by SBS. “Your time in Afghanistan is short. You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Talibs 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.”

The footage did not show the messages being broadcast, although it did show some military vehicles were fitted with speakers and playing loud music.

Dupont said the messages had been broadcast in the local dialect, but were translated into English for him by members of the Army psychological operations unit.

He declined to provide further information, however, saying his agent was now handling all queries about the footage.

Under Islamic tradition, bodies should be washed, prayed over, wrapped in white cloth and buried within 24 hours.

Ameer Ali, the head of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, said burning a body would be considered a desecration in the Islamic faith.

The SBS report suggested the deliberate burning of bodies could violate the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of enemy remains in wartime. Under the Geneva Conventions, soldiers must ensure that the “dead are honourably interred, if possible according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged”.

Furthermore, the rules state that bodies should not be cremated, “except for imperative reasons of hygiene or for motives based on the religion of the deceased”.

Dupont said the soldiers who burned the bodies said they did so for hygiene reasons. However, Dupont said the incendiary messages later broadcast by the US army psychological operations unit indicated they were aware that the cremation would be perceived as a desecration.

“They used that as a psychological warfare, I guess you’d call it. They used the fact that the Taliban were burned facing west (towards Mecca),” Dupont told SBS. “They deliberately wanted to incite that much anger from the Taliban so the Taliban could attack them… That’s the only way they can find them.”

The footage showed US troops treating an Afghan man and his son who had apparently been injured by US forces, and calling a helicopter to have them medivaced to a hospital.

The US military said it was investigating the alleged burning of the bodies.

“Under no circumstances does US Central Command condone the desecration, abuse or inappropriate treatment of enemy combatants. Such actions are contrary to US policy as well as the Geneva Convention,” according to a statement released by the MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

“The Army Criminal Investigation Division has initiated an investigation into the alleged misconduct. Should that investigation uncover actions by US personnel that were contrary to the Geneva Convention and US policy, legal and disciplinary action will be taken in accordance with the US Code of Military Justice,” the statement said.

In May, Newsweek magazine published a story – later retracted – that claimed interrogators at Guantanamo Bay military base flushed the Koran down a toilet. The report sparked riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan that left dozens of people dead.