US soldiers posed with the mangled bodies of suspected Afghan suicide bombers in graphic photos published Wednesday, prompting swift condemnation from US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Panetta, who was in Brussels for a NATO meeting, said through a spokesman that the photos published in the Los Angeles Times do not reflect the “values or professionalism” of America’s fighting forces in Afghanistan. “Secretary Panetta strongly rejects the conduct depicted in these two-year-old photographs,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement.
“These images by no means represent the values or professionalism of the vast majority of US troops serving in Afghanistan today,” he said, adding that the Pentagon has opened an investigation that could lead to disciplinary measures. “Anyone found responsible for this inhuman conduct will be held accountable in accordance with our military justice system,” Little said. Little also conveyed the US defense chief’s disappointment that the LA Times ignored a Pentagon request to refrain from publishing the photographs, which it reported had been obtained from a soldier in the division.
“The danger is that this material could be used by the enemy to incite violence against US and Afghan service members in Afghanistan. US forces in the country are taking security measures to guard against it,” the spokesman said. The unsettling images, which appear on the newspaper’s website, showed troops posing in one image with a severed hand and in another with disembodied legs, are the latest in a series of scandals that has strained US-Afghan ties.
The Times reported that the images were taken during more than one occasion over the course of 2010. The first incident took place in February 2010, when paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were sent to an Afghan police station in Zabol province to inspect the remains of an alleged suicide bomber. The soldiers had intended to try to get fingerprints and possibly scan the irises of the corpse, but instead they posed for pictures next to the Afghan police, holding up or squatting beside the remains, the newspaper said. A few months later, the same platoon went to inspect the remains of three insurgents whom Afghan police said had blown themselves up by accident.
Two soldiers posed holding up one of the dead men’s hands with the middle finger raised, while another leaned over the bearded corpse, the newspaper reported. Another soldier apparently placed an unofficial platoon patch reading “Zombie Hunter” next to the other remains and took a picture. LA Times editor Davan Maharaj said that the newspaper decided to publish a “small but representative selection” of the images because of their news value.
