The US military is investigating reports that its troops desecrated the bodies of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and then taunted a nearby village.
The Australian SBS television network broadcast video footage on its Datelinecurrent 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 who told the Associated Press he was embedded with the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the US Army earlier this month.
In the footage, taken earlier this month, 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."
Th journalist 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.
Under Islamic tradition, bodies should be washed, prayed over, wrapped in white cloth and buried within 24 hours.
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".
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 an army statement.
AP