Afghanistan’s Karzai condemns US troops’ corpse desecration

Afghan President Hamid Karzai voiced his condemnation on Friday after the release of television images appearing to show US soldiers burning the corpses of two Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, and called for a quick inquiry.

The US military—already under fire for the handling of Afghan detainees and desecration of the Koran in Guantanamo Bay, which provoked angry protests in Afghanistan—has ordered an inquiry into the footage shown on Australian television, shot in Kandahar, the former Taliban bastion.

The television report quoted the US soldiers as saying they burned the bodies for hygienic reasons. But the act could be deeply offensive to Muslims, whose faith demands respect for the dead and also prohibits cremation. —Reuters