KABUL, 1 November 2005 — Two US soldiers in Afghanistan have been indicted for abusing detainees, the US military said yesterday, adding that the results of a separate probe into the burning of two dead Taleban bodies could be complete this week. The two soldiers were charged with assaulting two detainees at an army base after reports from another soldier who said they had struck the detainees on the chest, shoulder and stomach, US spokesman Jim Yonts said.
The accused soldiers were not in custody and were still serving with their units, said US spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore. Yonts said investigations were continuing into the burning of the bodies of Taleban guerrillas earlier in October and could be completed this week. “The results will be made public,” he told Reuters.
Footage of the body burning incident was shown 11 days ago on Australian television, sparking anger among Afghans after a series of incidents of detainee abuse by US forces in the country. The TV report quoted US soldiers as saying they burned the bodies for reasons of hygiene. But the act could be deeply offensive to Muslims, whose faith prohibits cremation and demands respect for the dead.
According to the TV report, after the bodies were burned a US psychological operations unit broadcast a propaganda message on loudspeakers to a nearby village thought to harbor Taleban fighters, taunting them to retrieve their dead and fight. The incidents come amid a stepped up period of militant-related violence this year in which more than 1,100 people have died. Most of the dead have been militants, but the toll includes more than 50 US soldiers, making it the bloodiest period for US forces in Afghanistan since they overthrew the Taleban in late 2001.
The US military said it would not tolerate abuse by its soldiers. “These alleged offenses do not reflect the values of the members of this command,” Yonts told reporters. “We will not tolerate the kind of behavior that is alleged against these soldiers,” he said.
The Australian report said the soldiers had burned the bodies because they had been left in the open for more than 24 hours. They used the incident to taunt other Taleban fighters in an attempt to goad them into battle, it said. Besides a criminal investigation into the claims, the military was looking into how US forces were taught to handle human remains on the battlefield, Yonts said. It was also investigating psychological operation techniques, doctrine and training, he said. These are measures used to influence an enemy.
Meanwhile, a civilian was killed in a bomb blast probably targeted at a US military convoy in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, while security forces foiled a suicide attack on foreign troops, officials said. A bomb fixed to a bicycle exploded seconds after the convoy passed south of Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province on the border with Pakistan, provincial police spokesman Ghafor Khan told AFP. “One civilian was killed and five were wounded in the bomb explosion,” Khan said.
He blamed the attack on the “enemies of peace and stability,” a term often used by Afghan authorities to refer to loyalists of the fundamentalist Taleban regime toppled in a US-led invasion in late 2001. Since then a coalition force dominated by Americans has been based in Afghanistan to root out Taleban and other insurgents who have vowed to overthrow the new government of US-backed President Hamid Karzai.
