BELGIUM: NATO condemns new photos showing US troops posing with Afghan insurgent bodies.

Record ID: 830936

  • Title: BELGIUM: NATO condemns new photos showing US troops posing with Afghan insurgent bodies.
  • Date: 19th April 2012
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (APRIL 18, 2012) (NATO POOL) (SOUNDBITE) (English) NATO SECRETARY GENERAL, ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN, SAYING: "First of all, I strongly condemn these photos and of course these acts. Let me stress that they don't in any way represent the principles and values that are the basis for our mission in Afghanistan, on the contrary."
  • Embargoed: 4th May 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium, Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: Conflict,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA125CK6CQPRPDRUGYEJA21KLOD
  • Story Text: NATO condemned on Wednesday (April 18) new photographs of U.S. soldiers posing with the maimed bodies of dead Afghan insurgents.
    The photographs were published on Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times. One photograph showed a soldier from the Army 82nd Airborne Division with a dead insurgent's hand on his shoulder.
    The appearance on the LA Times website of some of the 18 pictures, taken in 2010, comes at a sensitive time in U.S.-Afghan relations, following release of a video in January that showed four U.S. Marines urinating on Afghan insurgent corpses.
    NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen condemned the photos.
    "First of all, I strongly condemn these photos and of course these acts. Let me stress that they don't in any way represent the principles and values that are the basis for our mission in Afghanistan, on the contrary," Rasmussen said.
    Rasmussen said the photographs were taken two years ago. Stressing he considered the matter as an isolated incident, Rasmussen said he hoped the incident won't spillover.
    "These events will be thoroughly investigated and of course there will be taken necessary and appropriate steps to hold people to account," Rasmussen said.
    British Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond described it as a ''shocking example of misbehaviour''.
    "Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, addressed this issue in the meeting today and apologised for it and apologised in particular for the besmirching of the good names of the tens of thousands of ISAF troops who do their job diligently and behave impeccably when these kind of incidents happen," Hammond said.
    The LA Times said the 82nd Airborne Division soldiers had been at a police station in Afghanistan's Zabol province in February 2010, and revisited several months later. The pictures were taken on both occasions.
    The photos are likely to stir up more anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan as NATO combat troops look to exit the country in 2014 and strengthen fragile security in the country.
    Such incidents have complicated U.S. efforts to negotiate a strategic partnership agreement to define its presence once most foreign combat troops pull out by the end of 2014.
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